Light (en) Up Sandy Baby!

Despite the weak piling of "assertion upon assertion" from the majority opinion, the dissenters in the Supreme Court's decision on Gonzales v. Raich have the interesting points:

O'Connor: 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.

Thomas:Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never
crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable
effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress
can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can
regulate virtually anything— and the Federal Government
is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers and may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states..

Well, duh...
But the absolute funniest thing to come out of this is DEA Administrator Karen Tandy's assertion that marijuana "myths" are "killing people". Now what exactly has she been smoking? It should be noted that the Federal Government keeps stressing that they won't use their sway to "arrest low-level users"

Czar Walters: Criminal justice sanctions are sometimes necessary, but we are not locking up low-level marijuana offenders.

yet that's exactly what has happened, just as he admitted in February.

...concluding that unless there is a shift in the fundamental approach, "you are chasing primarily small people, putting them in jail, year after year, generation after generation."