	Background

The dispute in Gonzales v. Raich involved a conflict between California's Compassionate Use Act and the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Supreme Court's Decision

In reaching its conclusions, the Court relied heavily on its 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn , which held that the Agricultural Adjustment Act's federal quota system applied to bushels of wheat that were homegrown and personally consumed. Wickard stands for the proposition that Congress can rationally combine the effects that an individual producer has on an interstate market to find substantial impacts on interstate commerce. Thus, the Court concluded that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that "leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control would similarly affect price and market conditions."
In Gonzales v. Raich , the Supreme Court was presented with a conflict between California's state law, permitting the medicinal use of marijuana, and the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The Ninth Circuit had found the federal law unconstitutional "as applied," concluding that its enforcement against medicinal users was beyond Congress's enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control would substantially affect conditions in the interstate market. The Court, in reaching its decision, specifically relied on Wickard v. Filburn (1942), which held that Congress could aggregate the impact of individual actors on the interstate market to find a substantial impact on interstate commerce.