WHAT THE JUSTICES WROTE

Excerpts from the majority and dissenting opinions in the California
medical marijuana case the Supreme Court decided Monday:

"The exemption for cultivation by patients and caregivers can only increase
the supply of marijuana in the California market. The likelihood that all
such production will promptly terminate when patients recover or will
precisely match the patients' medical needs during their convalescence
seems remote; whereas the danger that excesses will satisfy some of the
admittedly enormous demand for recreational use seems obvious. Moreover,
that the national and international narcotics trade has thrived in the face
of vigorous criminal enforcement efforts suggests that no small number of
unscrupulous people will make use of the California exemptions to serve
their commercial ends whenever it is feasible to do so."

. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority

"Relying on Congress' abstract assertions, the court has endorsed making it
a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for
one's own medicinal use. This overreaching stifles an express choice by
some states, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to
regulate medical marijuana differently. If I were a California citizen, I
would not have voted for the medical marijuana ballot initiative; if I were
a California legislator I would not have supported the Compassionate Use
Act. But whatever the wisdom of California's experiment with medical
marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our Commerce Clause
cases require that room for experiment be protected in this case."

. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the dissenters