The Congress has no authority to regulate this, as it is not interstate commerce. Your statist opinions are irrelevant to the case here.
My statement was more of a policy critique of the the way the pro-medical marijuana people are going about their campaign. The whole statewide referendum think just reeks of backdoor legalization, and is antithetical to the way the practice of medicine should be conducted.
From a legal standpoint, the Supreme Court has basically held that the federal government can regulate economic activity period. It has been holding this way for 70 years. Cases like Lopez don't turn on whether the activity was interstate, but rather whether it was commerce at all.
This is not commerce either, but you're wrong. Lopez stated that the fed could only regulate action that substantially affects interstate commerce.
The Lopez opinion is almost entirely concerned with whether and activity is commerce, not whether it is interstate. The Lopez court distinguishes Wickard v. Filburn while acknowledging it as good law; it does not overturn it.
In Wickard, the law at issue regulated the amount of wheat a farmer could consume from his own farm. The court upheld the law, reasoning that if the farmer did not consume his own wheat, he might buy other foods that had entered interstate commerce instead. Thus, allowing him to eat however much wheat he wanted would have a substantial affect on interstate commerce, even though the wheat itself never left his property.
In Lopez, the defendant is convicted of violating the Gun-Free School Zone Act.
In distinguishing Wickard, Rehnquist's Lopez opinion argues:
"Even Wickard...involved economic activity in a way that the possession of a gun in a school zone does not." (514 US at 560),
and
"Section 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms."
The opinion never argues that the Act is unconstitutional because it could be applied to
intrastate commerce, but rather because it's doesn't have an substantial effect on
commerce at all. "Interstate commerce" has during the past century evolved into a term of art in which only the "commerce" part is important.
Certainly, growing marijuana for local sale has at least as much affect on interstate commerce as consuming home-grown wheat. Wickard is much more the controlling authority here than Lopez. The court got this one absolutely right.