Opinion: Supreme Court needn't fear healthcare law's individual mandate

Strangely missing from these exchanges was any recognition that we are already poised on equally treacherous slopes in interpreting the commerce clause, and the court has demonstrated that it has plenty of pitons available to it to arrest our slide and limit the scope of federal power. To understand this, remember that the court has already determined Congress has authority to prohibit people from possessing things under the commerce clause. Just seven years ago in Gonzales vs. Raich, the court held that the feds can ban the possession of marijuana.It didn't matter how a person obtained the marijuana, how much he or she possessed or whether he or she planned to consume rather than sell it.