HIGH COURT

I feel as though I am going insane. The U.S. Supreme Court heard a case concerning medical marijuana on Monday and debated it, according to The New York Times, on the precedent of Wickard vs. Filburn — a 1942 case that decided wheat grown for private consumption interfered with interstate commerce and thus was under federal jurisdiction.

“It looks like Wickard to me,” Justice Antonin Scalia said. “Why is this not economic activity? This marijuana that’s grown is like wheat. Since it’s grown, it doesn’t have to be bought elsewhere.”

Um, isn’t this an argument better left to a product intended to be bought and sold, not something the U.S. government is trying to keep illegal? Saying the pot cancer patients grow for medical reasons interferes with pot that could be “bought elsewhere” is like complaining that masturbation robs hookers of work.

What’s crazier is that the Times’ article hints strongly that the case will fail, the federal government will step in and desperately sick people will be deprived surcease from pain. Because, of all things, the government has a right to keep interstate commerce flowing — in reefer.