Congress possesses only those powers enumerated in the Constitution. Among them is the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Yet over time, Supreme Court decisions—culminating in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) and Gonzales v. Raich (2005)—have stretched the Commerce Clause, together with the Necessary and Proper Clause, far beyond its original meaning. As a result, the federal government now claims authority to regulate or criminalize even local, noncommercial activity.

Twenty years ago, in Raich, the Court upheld Congress’s power to ban the purely intrastate cultivation and use of medical marijuana, even when permitted by state law. The case involved two seriously ill California women who used marijuana grown at home to alleviate pain under their doctors’ supervision. Yet the Court ruled that Congress could prohibit their activity on the theory that local conduct, taken in the aggregate, might affect interstate drug markets. That decision, building on Wickard’s expansive logic, effectively granted Congress a general police power the Framers deliberately withheld.

Cato’s amicus brief in Canna Provisions v. Bondi urges the Supreme Court to overrule Raich and restore the Constitution’s original limits on federal power.

The petitioners—Massachusetts-licensed businesses that grow or sell marijuana exclusively within the state—operate under one of the nation’s strictest state regulatory systems. Every gram of marijuana is tracked “from seed to sale,” ensuring that no product crosses state lines. Yet the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) still criminalizes their business. Lower courts—feeling bound by Raich—dismissed their complaint challenging the constitutionality of the CSA.

Our brief supports their petition and argues that applying the CSA to these state-regulated, intrastate operations exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. The Framers of the Constitution viewed regulating local agriculture, manufacturing, and consumption as the province of the States, not the federal government. Nor can the Necessary and Proper Clause transform a limited power into an unlimited one: “necessary” does not mean “convenient,” and a law invading the States’ reserved powers is not “proper.”

Allowing Congress to criminalize lawful, purely intrastate activity undermines the federalist structure that safeguards liberty. Under Wickard and Raich, there is no clear limit to federal power. If local, even noncommercial conduct can be aggregated to justify regulation, then Congress has the power to ban backyard gardens, church potlucks, or the exchange of homemade goods—each of these is “economic” in the aggregate. A power to regulate everything that might “affect” commerce invades Americans’ lives and reduces States to mere administrative districts.

The Supreme Court should grant review, overrule Raich, and reaffirm that the Constitution establishes a national government with enumerated and limited powers.