Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Supreme Court Hears Medical Marijuana Arguments, 12/01/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/scotus_12-01.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is the difference between a federal law and a state law?

2. Should states be able to have laws that are different from federal laws? Why or why not?

3. Should people who are chronically ill be able to use medicinal marijuana when other treatments don't work?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What was the topic of oral arguments heard this week in the Supreme Court regarding states and the federal government?

This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday regarding the legality of state laws that allow chronically sick people to use marijuana if a doctor prescribes it. The federal government wants to be able to enforce federal laws that ban the practice, saying it's essential in the war on drugs.

2. Describe the basic arguments of both sides in the case - the plaintiffs and the federal government?

Ten states have laws that allow people to use marijuana to treat illnesses if prescribed by a doctor, but federal law says that the practice is illegal.

The federal government argues that it has the right to override state laws in this situation because the issue is one of interstate commerce. The commerce clause of the Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate trade "among the several states."

The plaintiffs in the case argue that homegrown medical marijuana is not sold and is therefore not related to interstate commerce.

3. Who is the main plaintiff in the case? What is her situation?

The case now before the Supreme Court is called Ashcroft v. Raich. It concerns Angel Raich, a 39-year-old California mother of two who uses marijuana to treat the pain caused by a brain tumor and other illnesses.

"This is medicine. I actually don't like smoking or vaporizing or using cannabis, but it's the only way that I can keep from dying," Raich said. Without the marijuana, she would not feel well enough to eat, she explained.

4. Why did the plaintiff sue the government?

After the federal government stepped up efforts to prosecute the suppliers of medical marijuana in 2001, Raich and another ill woman, Diane Monson, sued the federal government for the right to obtain the drug for medicinal purposes. California, where both live, legalized medical marijuana in 1996.

5. What did the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals say about the case?

Raich and Monson won their case against the government in the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court ruled 2 to 1 that the federal prosecution of medical marijuana users in states with medical marijuana laws is unconstitutional if the drug is not sold, not transported across state lines and used for medicinal purposes.

6. What is federalism? And why is it interesting in this case, according to legal experts?

This strengthened the doctrine of "federalism" -- the rights of states to decide certain matters for themselves.

Legal experts say that the medical marijuana case is especially interesting because the doctrine of federalism -- often used by conservatives to keep the centralized federal government out of local issues -- is now being used by liberals.

7. How do some Supreme Court watchers think this issue may be decided?

But some Supreme Court watchers think conservative justices, who have upheld states rights in the past, will argue that the right of the federal government to regulate the drug trade trumps a state's right to legalize marijuana for sick people.

"Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy, two justices who have been part of that five-justice majority to strike down other laws in the past, suggested today by their questions that perhaps the mere possession of this kind of marijuana, the personal use of it and growing it in your own home, that could also affect commerce because that means you're not out buying the drugs on the market," Chicago Tribune Supreme Court reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg told the NewsHour.

"So that could have some impact on commerce that may be enough to allow Congress to step in here, pass this federal law and regulate this kind of drug use," she added.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. What do you think? Should states that have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana be allowed to do so? Explain your reasoning.

2. Would you or would you want a member of your family to use medicinal marijuana if other treatments did not work well? Why or why not? What would you do if the law did not allow such use?

3. Research some historical Supreme Court cases that have dealt with the commerce clause of the Constitution including Swift v. United States (1905), Wickard v. Filburn (1942), Katzenbach v. McClung (1964) and United States v. Morrison (1995). What do these cases show about the push and pull between the power of states and the power of the federal government? Use specific examples from history.

Write a 500-800 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.