Linder v. United States
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| Linder v. United States | |||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 9, 1925 Decided April 13, 1925 |
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| Holding | |||||||||||
| The Harrison Act cannot be used to prosecute doctors who proscribe narcotics to addicts. | |||||||||||
| Court membership | |||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Howard Taft Associate Justices: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Willis Van Devanter, James Clark McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, Edward Terry Sanford, Harlan Fiske Stone |
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| Case opinions | |||||||||||
| Majority by: McReynolds Joined by: unanimous |
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| Laws applied | |||||||||||
| Harrison Narcotics Tax Act | |||||||||||
| Superseded by | |||||||||||
| Controlled Substance Act | |||||||||||
Linder v. United States, , is a Supreme Court case involving the applicability of the Harrison Act. The Harrison Act was originally a taxing measure on drugs such as morphine and cocaine, but it later effectively became a prohibition on such drugs. However, the Act had a provision exempting doctors prescribing the drugs. Dr. Charles Linder proscribed the drugs to addicts, which the federal government said was not a legitimate medical practice. He was prosecuted and convicted. Linder appealed, and the Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction, holding that the federal government overstepped its power to regulate medicine. The opinion of the court was written by Justice James Clark McReynolds.
[edit] Current implication
With the passage of myriad later laws, including the Controlled Substance Act which gives no exemption whatsoever to Schedule I drugs, and the end of Lochner era, the holding of Linder has now been mostly overruled or superseded. However, the rationale of the case was later used to stop the Department of Justice from interfering with Oregon's assisted suicide laws in the case Gonzales v. Oregon.
