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Cato Daily Dispatch for June 29, 2004

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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Medical Marijuana Case
New Yorkers Now Must Smoke 'Safe' Cigarettes
Fed Meets to Consider Raising Interest Rates

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Medical Marijuana Case

"The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide whether the federal government can prosecute sick people who smoke marijuana on the advice of a doctor," the Associated Press reports. "The case, Ashcroft v. Raich, involves the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say pot is the only drug that eases their chronic pain and other medical problems."

Attorney Randy Barnett, Cato senior fellow and author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, represents the petitioners who are fighting for access to medical marijuana in this case. In "Federalism Wins: Ninth Circuit Gets Medical-marijuana Right," he writes: "The [Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] found that because the cultivation, possession, and use of medical cannabis was a completely non-economic activity and too attenuated from interstate commerce, applying the federal Controlled Substance Act to this conduct exceeded the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause." In a statement released after the Ninth Circuit Court decision, Barnett said: "If this case does go to the Supreme Court, we will learn whether the more conservative justices who developed this doctrine [of federalism] have the courage of their convictions when it applies to activities of which they may disapprove. We will also see whether the more liberal justices will put their disdain for the Court's landmark Commerce Clause cases--U.S. v. Lopez and U.S. v. Morrison--above the commitment to stare decisis, which would let them do justice to those whose suffering is alleviated by use of medical cannabis."

New Yorkers Now Must Smoke 'Safe' Cigarettes

"Smokers who linger between drags on their cigarette may need to be a tad more careful in New York," according to the Associated Press. "Their smokes will self-extinguish if not puffed on regularly.

"New York became the first state yesterday to require new 'fire-safe' cigarettes to be sold. The law is meant to cut down on the number of smoking-related fires."

In "Fired-Up About Safe Cigarettes," Cato Senior Fellow Robert A. Levy writes: "Just when you think the politicians have wasted their time and our money on every harebrained scheme imaginable, New York lawmakers prove that they haven't yet plumbed their potential for legislative foolishness.

"... [F]ires caused by cigarettes kill about 1,000 people yearly across the United States. By comparison, 163,000 die from other injuries, of which 99,000 are alcohol-related and 41,000 are auto-related. Are brewers and car makers next on legislatures' hit lists? What about motorcycles? Surely they could be made safer by adding two more wheels and a steel shell. And before we exhaust fire-related legislation, let's go after the makers of lighter fluid, gas grills, and match manufacturers, who have the nerve to call their product 'safety matches.' ... You don't have to be a state legislator to know that this [law] is quite simply ridiculous."

Fed Meets to Consider Raising Interest Rates

"Federal Reserve policy makers are all but certain tomorrow to raise their benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than four years, ending an extraordinary period of historically low interest rates and beginning a cycle in which rates trend higher," the Boston Globe reports.

In "Deficits, Interests Rates, and Taxes: Myths and Realities," a Policy Analysis released today by the Cato Institute, Cato Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds argues that higher interest rates are not a result of the budget deficit. Additionally, he says that tax hikes are not a constructive alternative to deficits.

"In reality, neither actual nor projected budget deficits raise real or nominal interest rates, steepen the yield curve, reduce national savings, cause 'twin deficits,' or make the dollar go down or up," Reynolds writes. "The logic behind such speculations is flawed and contradictory and the evidence is nonexistent."

Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org