Justice Thomas, dissenting.
When Angel Raich and Diane Monson challenged the application of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq., to their purely intrastate possession of marijuana for medical use as authorized under California law, a majority of this Court (a mere seven months ago) determined that the CSA effectively invalidated California’s law because “the CSA is a comprehensive regulatory regime specifically designed to regulate which controlled substances can be utilized for medicinal purposes, and in what manner.” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at 24) (emphasis added). The majority employed unambiguous language, concluding that the “manner” in which controlled substances can be utilized “for medicinal purposes” is one of the “core activities regulated by the CSA.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 25). And, it described the CSA as “creating a comprehensive framework for regulating the production, distribution, and possession of … ‘controlled substances,’ ” including those substances that “ ‘have a useful and legitimate medical purpose,’ ” in order to “foster the beneficial use of those medications” and “to prevent their misuse.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 21).
Today the majority beats a hasty retreat from these conclusions. Confronted with a regulation that broadly requires all prescriptions to be issued for a “legitimate medical purpose,” 21 CFR § 1306.04(a) (2005), a regulation recognized in Raich as part of the Federal Government’s “closed … system” for regulating the “manner” in “which controlled substances can be utilized for medicinal purposes,” 545 U.S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 10, 24), the majority rejects the Attorney General’s admittedly “at least reasonable,” ante, at 26, determination that administering controlled substances to facilitate a patient’s death is not a “ ‘legitimate medical purpose.’ ” The majority does so based on its conclusion that the CSA is only concerned with the regulation of “medical practice insofar as it bars doctors from using their prescription-writing powers as a means to engage in illicit drug dealing and trafficking as conventionally understood.” Ante, at 23. In other words, in stark contrast to Raich’s broad conclusions about the scope of the CSA as it pertains to the medicinal use of controlled substances, today this Court concludes that the CSA is merely concerned with fighting “ ‘drug abuse’ ” and only insofar as that abuse leads to “addiction or abnormal effects on the nervous system.”1 Ante, at 26.
How can one have the right to life without the inherent right to death?