Cite as: 532 U. S. 483 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
We need not decide, however, whether necessity can ever be a defense when the federal statute does not expressly provide for it. In this case, to resolve the question presented, we need only recognize that a medical necessity exception for marijuana is at odds with the terms of the Controlled Substances Act. The statute, to be sure, does not explicitly abrogate the defense.4 But its provisions leave no doubt that the defense is unavailable.
Under any conception of legal necessity, one principle is clear: The defense cannot succeed when the legislature itself has made a "determination of values." 1 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 5.4, p. 629 (1986). In the case of the Controlled Substances Act, the statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception (outside the confines of a Government-approved research project). Whereas some other drugs can be dispensed and prescribed for medical use, see 21 U. S. C. § 829, the same is not true for marijuana. Indeed, for purposes of the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use" at all. § 812.
The structure of the Act supports this conclusion. The statute divides drugs into five schedules, depending in part on whether the particular drug has a currently accepted
available to prisoners, like Bailey, who fail to present evidence of a bona fide effort to surrender as soon as the claimed necessity had lost its coercive force. 444 U. S., at 415. It was not argued, and so there was no occasion to consider, whether the statute might be unable to bear any necessity defense at all. And although the Court noted that Congress "legislates against a background of Anglo-Saxon common law" and thus "may" have contemplated a necessity defense, the Court refused to "balanc[e] [the] harms," explaining that "we are construing an Act of Congress, not drafting it." Id., at 415-416, n. 11.
4 We reject the Cooperative's intimation that elimination of the defense requires an "explici[t]" statement. Brief for Respondents 21. Considering that we have never held necessity to be a viable justification for violating a federal statute, see supra, at 490, and n. 3, and that such a defense would entail a social balancing that is better left to Congress, we decline to set the bar so high.
491
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007