The forces of drug prohibition won a big case that will reverberate in the fight against the health care bill. They won it in 2005 in the Supreme Court. Read it and weep.

Lawsuits from 14 states challenging the constitutionality of the new national healthcare law face an uphill battle, largely due to a far-reaching Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that upheld federal restrictions on home-grown marijuana in California.

At issue in that case -- just like in the upcoming challenges to the healthcare overhaul -- was the reach of the federal government's power.

Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined a 6-3 ruling that said Congress could regulate marijuana that was neither bought nor sold on the market but rather grown at home legally for sick patients.

They said the Constitution gave Congress nearly unlimited power to regulate the marketplace as part of its authority "to regulate commerce."

Even "noneconomic local activity" can come under federal regulation if it is "a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce," Scalia wrote.

The decision throws up a significant hurdle for the lawsuit filed last week in federal court by 13 state attorneys -- all but one a Republican. The Virginia attorney general filed a similar, but separate suit.

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so funny.

Here is a nice little ditty.

First they came for the crack users; but I said nothing. I was not a crack user.

Then they came for the heroin users. But I said nothing - I was not a heroin user.

Then they came for the cannabis growers. But I said nothing - I was not a cannabis grower.

Then they came for the Antisocial Youth. But I said nothing - I was not young or antisocial.

Then they came for me. And there was no-one to speak out for me.

[after Pastor Niemoller]

Can you hear me now?

Cross Posted at Power and Control