Expert Comment on the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on the Medical Use of Marijuana

from the University of Pennsylvania Law School

June 6, 2005

Theodore Ruger, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, teaches, researches and writes about constitutional law and health law.

"This ruling marks the end of the Court's expansive federalism jurisprudence of the late 1990s.  This case stands as one of a few recent ones to indicate that, in a post-9/11world, the Court is more supportive of strong centralized national

authority than it might have been five years ago.  To the extent this is viewed as a 'health law' case, it is a poor subject for the Court to not defer to state law choices, since that area has traditionally been left in large part to state law."