OPINION OF THE COURT GONZALES V. OREGON 546 U. S. ____ (2006) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-623 ALBERTO R. GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al.,
PETITIONERS v. OREGON et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[January 17, 2006]

															   Justice Kennedy delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   The question before us is whether
the Controlled Substances Act allows the United States Attorney
General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for
use in physician-assisted suicide, notwithstanding a state law
permitting the procedure. As the Court has observed, “Americans are
engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality,
legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide.” Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U. S. 702 , 735
(1997). The dispute before us is in part a product of this
political and moral debate, but its resolution requires an inquiry
familiar to the courts: interpreting a federal statute to determine
whether Executive action is authorized by, or otherwise consistent
with, the enactment.

															   In 1994, Oregon became the first State to
legalize assisted suicide when voters approved a ballot measure
enacting the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ODWDA). Ore. Rev. Stat.
§127.800 et seq. (2003). ODWDA, which survived a 1997
ballot measure seeking its repeal, exempts from civil or criminal
liability state-licensed physicians who, in compliance with the
specific safeguards in ODWDA, dispense or prescribe a lethal dose
of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient.

															   The drugs Oregon physicians prescribe under
ODWDA are regulated under a federal statute, the Controlled
Substances Act (CSA or Act). 84 Stat. 1242, as amended, 21 U.
S. C. §801 et seq . The CSA allows these particular
drugs to be available only by a written prescription from a
registered physician. In the ordinary course the same drugs are
prescribed in smaller doses for pain alleviation.

															   A November 9, 2001 Interpretive Rule issued by
the Attorney General addresses the implementation and enforcement
of the CSA with respect to ODWDA. It determines that using
controlled substances to assist suicide is not a legitimate medical
practice and that dispensing or prescribing them for this purpose
is unlawful under the CSA. The Interpretive Rule’s validity under
the CSA is the issue before us.

															I

															A

															   We turn first to the text and
structure of the CSA. Enacted in 1970 with the main objectives of
combating drug abuse and controlling the legitimate and
illegitimate traffic in controlled substances, the CSA creates a
comprehensive, closed regulatory regime criminalizing the
unauthorized manufacture, distribution, dispensing, and possession
of substances classified in any of the Act’s five schedules. Gonzales v. Raich , 545 U. S. ____, ___ (2005)
(slip op., at 9–10); 21 U. S. C. §841 (2000 ed. and Supp. II);
21 U. S. C. §844. The Act places substances in one of five
schedules based on their potential for abuse or dependence, their
accepted medical use, and their accepted safety for use under
medical supervision. Schedule I contains the most severe
restrictions on access and use, and Schedule V the least. Raich , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 11); 21 U.
S. C. §812. Congress classified a host of substances when it
enacted the CSA, but the statute permits the Attorney General to
add, remove, or reschedule substances. He may do so, however, only
after making particular findings, and on scientific and medical
matters he is required to accept the findings of the Secretary of
Health and Human Services (Secretary). These proceedings must be on
the record after an opportunity for comment. See 21 U.
S. C. A. §811 (main ed. and Supp. 2005).

															   The present dispute involves
controlled substances listed in Schedule II, substances generally
available only pursuant to a written, nonrefillable prescription by
a physician. 21 U. S. C. §829(a). A 1971 regulation
promulgated by the Attorney General requires that every
prescription for a controlled substance “be issued for a legitimate
medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual
course of his professional practice.” 21 CFR §1306.04(a)
(2005).

															   To prevent diversion of controlled substances
with medical uses, the CSA regulates the activity of physicians. To
issue lawful prescriptions of Schedule II drugs, physicians must
“obtain from the Attorney General a registration issued in
accordance with the rules and regulations promulgated by him.” 21
U. S. C. §822(a)(2). The Attorney General may deny, suspend,
or revoke this registration if, as relevant here, the physician’s
registration would be “inconsistent with the public interest.”
§824(a)(4); §822(a)(2). When deciding whether a practitioner’s
registration is in the public interest, the Attorney General
“shall” consider:

															   “(1) The recommendation of the
appropriate State licensing board or professional disciplinary
authority.

															   “(2) The applicant’s experience in dispensing,
or conducting research with respect to controlled substances.

															   “(3) The applicant’s conviction record under
Federal or State laws relating to the manufacture, distribution, or
dispensing of controlled substances.

															   “(4) Compliance with applicable State,
Federal, or local laws relating to controlled substances.

															   “(5) Such other conduct which may threaten the
public health and safety.” §823(f).

															   The CSA explicitly contemplates a
role for the States in regulating controlled substances, as
evidenced by its pre-emption provision.

															   “No provision of this subchapter
shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the
Congress to occupy the field in which that provision operates . . .
to the exclusion of any State law on the same subject matter which
would otherwise be within the authority of the State, unless there
is a positive conflict between that provision . . . and that State
law so that the two cannot consistently stand together.” §903.

															B

															   Oregon voters enacted ODWDA in
1994. For Oregon residents to be eligible to request a prescription
under ODWDA, they must receive a diagnosis from their attending
physician that they have an incurable and irreversible disease
that, within reasonable medical judgment, will cause death within
six months. Ore. Rev. Stat. §§127.815, 127.800(12) (2003).
Attending physicians must also determine whether a patient has made
a voluntary request, ensure a patient’s choice is informed, and
refer patients to counseling if they might be suffering from a
psychological disorder or depression causing impaired judgment.
§§127.815, 127.825. A second “consulting” physician must examine
the patient and the medical record and confirm the attending
physician’s conclusions. §127.800(8). Oregon physicians may
dispense or issue a prescription for the requested drug, but may
not administer it. §§127.815(L), 127.880.

															   The reviewing physicians must
keep detailed medical records of the process leading to the final
prescription, §127.855, records that Oregon’s Department of Human
Services reviews, §127.865. Physicians who dispense medication
pursuant to ODWDA must also be registered with both the State’s
Board of Medical Examiners and the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA). §127.815(1)(L). In 2004, 37 patients ended
their lives by ingesting a lethal dose of medication prescribed
under ODWDA. Oregon Dept. of Human Servs., Seventh Annual Report on
Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act 20 (Mar. 10, 2005).

															C

															   In 1997, Members of Congress
concerned about ODWDA invited the DEA to prosecute or revoke the
CSA registration of Oregon physicians who assist suicide. They
contended that hastening a patient’s death is not legitimate
medical practice, so prescribing controlled substances for that
purpose violates the CSA. Letter from Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep.
Henry Hyde to Thomas A. Constantine (July 25, 1997), reprinted in
Hearings on S. 2151 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,
105th Cong., 2d Sess., 2–3 (1999) (hereinafter Hearings). The
letter received an initial, favorable response from the director of
the DEA, see Letter from Thomas A. Constantine to Sen. Orrin Hatch
(Nov. 5, 1997), Hearings 4–5, but Attorney General Reno considered
the matter and concluded that the DEA could not take the proposed
action because the CSA did not authorize it to “displace the states
as the primary regulators of the medical profession, or to override
a state’s determination as to what constitutes legitimate medical
practice,” Letter from Attorney General Janet Reno to Sen. Orrin
Hatch, on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (June 5, 1998), Hearings
5–6. Legislation was then introduced to grant the explicit
authority Attorney General Reno found lacking; but it failed to
pass. See H. R. 4006, 105th Cong., 2d Sess. (1998); H. R.
2260, 106th Cong., 1st Sess. (1999).

															   In 2001, John Ashcroft was
appointed Attorney General. Perhaps because Mr. Ashcroft had
supported efforts to curtail assisted suicide while serving as a
Senator, see, e.g. , 143 Cong. Rec. 5589–5590 (1997)
(remarks of Sen. Ashcroft), Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers
wrote him to request a meeting with Department of Justice officials
should the Department decide to revisit the application of the CSA
to assisted suicide. Letter of Feb. 2, 2001, App. to Brief for
Patient-Respondents in Opposition 55a. Attorney General Myers
received a reply letter from one of Attorney General Ashcroft’s
advisers writing on his behalf, which stated

															   “I am aware of no pending
legislation in Congress that would prompt a review of the
Department’s interpretation of the CSA as it relates to
physician-assisted suicide. Should such a review be commenced in
the future, we would be happy to include your views in that
review.” Letter from Lori Sharpe (Apr. 17, 2001), id., at
58a.

															   On November 9, 2001, without
consulting Oregon or apparently anyone outside his Department, the
Attorney General issued an Interpretive Rule announcing his intent
to restrict the use of controlled substances for physician-assisted
suicide. Incorporating the legal analysis of a memorandum he had
solicited from his Office of Legal Counsel, the Attorney General
ruled

															“assisting suicide is not a ‘legitimate medical
purpose’ within the meaning of 21 CFR 1306.04 (2001), and that
prescribing, dispensing, or administering federally controlled
substances to assist suicide violates the Controlled Substances
Act. Such conduct by a physician registered to dispense controlled
substances may ‘render his registration . . . inconsistent with the
public interest’ and therefore subject to possible suspension or
revocation under 21 U. S. C. 824(a)(4). The Attorney General’s
conclusion applies regardless of whether state law authorizes or
permits such conduct by practitioners or others and regardless of
the condition of the person whose suicide is assisted.” 66 Fed.
Reg. 56608 (2001).

															   There is little dispute that the
Interpretive Rule would substantially disrupt the ODWDA regime.
Respondents contend, and petitioners do not dispute, that every
prescription filled under ODWDA has specified drugs classified
under Schedule II. A physician cannot prescribe the substances
without DEA registration, and revocation or suspension of the
registration would be a severe restriction on medical practice.
Dispensing controlled substances without a valid prescription,
furthermore, is a federal crime. See, e.g. , 21 U.
S. C. §841(a)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. II); United States v. Moore, 423 U. S. 122 (1975).

															   In response the State of Oregon, joined by a
physician, a pharmacist, and some terminally ill patients, all from
Oregon, challenged the Interpretive Rule in federal court. The
United States District Court for the District of Oregon entered a
permanent injunction against the Interpretive Rule’s
enforcement.

															   A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit granted the petitions for review and held the
Interpretive Rule invalid. Oregon v. Ashcroft ,
368 F. 3d 1118 (2004). It reasoned that, by making a medical
procedure authorized under Oregon law a federal offense, the
Interpretive Rule altered the “ ‘ “usual constitutional
balance between the States and the Federal
Government” ’ ” without the requisite clear statement
that the CSA authorized such action. Id., at 1124–1125
(quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452 , 460
(1991) (in turn quoting Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234 , 242
(1985))). The Court of Appeals held in the alternative that the
Interpretive Rule could not be squared with the plain language of
the CSA, which targets only conventional drug abuse and excludes
the Attorney General from decisions on medical policy. 368
F. 3d, at 1125–1129.

															   We granted the Government’s petition for
certiorari. 543 U.
S. 1145 (2005).

															II

															   Executive actors often must
interpret the enactments Congress has charged them with enforcing
and implementing. The parties before us are in sharp disagreement
both as to the degree of deference we must accord the Interpretive
Rule’s substantive conclusions and whether the Rule is authorized
by the statutory text at all. Although balancing the necessary
respect for an agency’s knowledge, expertise, and constitutional
office with the courts’ role as interpreter of laws can be a
delicate matter, familiar principles guide us. An administrative
rule may receive substantial deference if it interprets the issuing
agency’s own ambiguous regulation. Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452 , 461–463
(1997). An interpretation of an ambiguous statute may also receive
substantial deference. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 , 842–845
(1984). Deference in accordance with Chevron , however, is
warranted only “when it appears that Congress delegated authority
to the agency generally to make rules carrying the force of law,
and that the agency interpretation claiming deference was
promulgated in the exercise of that authority.” United
States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218 , 226–227
(2001). Otherwise, the interpretation is “entitled to respect” only
to the extent it has the “power to persuade.” Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134 , 140
(1944).

															A

															   The Government first argues that
the Interpretive Rule is an elaboration of one of the Attorney
General’s own regulations, 21 CFR §1306.04 (2005), which requires
all prescriptions be issued “for a legitimate medical purpose by an
individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his
professional practice.” As such, the Government says, the
Interpretive Rule is entitled to considerable deference in
accordance with Auer .

															   In our view Auer and the
standard of deference it accords to an agency are inapplicable
here. Auer involved a disputed interpretation of the Fair
Labor Standards Act of 1938 as applied to a class of law
enforcement officers. Under regulations promulgated by the
Secretary of Labor, an exemption from overtime pay depended, in
part, on whether the employees met the “salary basis” test. 519 U.
S., at 454–455. In this Court the Secretary of Labor filed an amicus brief explaining why, in his view, the regulations
gave exempt status to the officers. Id., at 461. We gave
weight to that interpretation, holding that because the applicable
test was “a creature of the Secretary’s own regulations, his
interpretation of it is, under our jurisprudence, controlling
unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the
regulation. ” Ibid. (internal quotation marks
omitted).

															   In Auer , the underlying regulations
gave specificity to a statutory scheme the Secretary was charged
with enforcing and reflected the considerable experience and
expertise the Department of Labor had acquired over time with
respect to the complexities of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Here,
on the other hand, the underlying regulation does little more than
restate the terms of the statute itself. The language the
Interpretive Rule addresses comes from Congress, not the Attorney
General, and the near-equivalence of the statute and regulation
belies the Government’s argument for Auer deference.

															   The Government does not suggest that its
interpretation turns on any difference between the statutory and
regulatory language. The CSA allows prescription of drugs only if
they have a “currently accepted medical use,” 21 U. S. C.
§812(b); requires a “medical purpose” for dispensing the least
controlled substances of those on the schedules, §829(c); and, in
its reporting provision, defines a “valid prescription” as one
“issued for a legitimate medical purpose,” §830(b)(3)(A)(ii).
Similarly, physicians are considered to be acting as practitioners
under the statute if they dispense controlled substances “in the
course of professional practice.” §802(21). The regulation uses the
terms “legitimate medical purpose” and “the course of professional
practice,” ibid., but this just repeats two statutory
phrases and attempts to summarize the others. It gives little or no
instruction on a central issue in this case: Who decides whether a
particular activity is in “the course of professional practice” or
done for a “legitimate medical purpose”? Since the regulation gives
no indication how to decide this issue, the Attorney General’s
effort to decide it now cannot be considered an interpretation of
the regulation. Simply put, the existence of a parroting regulation
does not change the fact that the question here is not the meaning
of the regulation but the meaning of the statute. An agency does
not acquire special authority to interpret its own words when,
instead of using its expertise and experience to formulate a
regulation, it has elected merely to paraphrase the statutory
language.

															   Furthermore, as explained below, if there is
statutory authority to issue the Interpretive Rule it comes from
the 1984 amendments to the CSA that gave the Attorney General
authority to register and deregister physicians based on the public
interest. The regulation was enacted before those amendments, so
the Interpretive Rule cannot be justified as indicative of some
intent the Attorney General had in 1971. That the current
interpretation runs counter to the “intent at the time of the
regulation’s promulgation,” is an additional reason why Auer deference is unwarranted. Thomas Jefferson
Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U. S. 504 , 512
(1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). Deference under Auer being inappropriate, we turn to the question whether
the Interpretive Rule, on its own terms, is a permissible
interpretation of the CSA.

															B

															   Just as the Interpretive Rule
receives no deference under Auer , neither does it receive
deference under Chevron . If a statute is ambiguous,
judicial review of administrative rulemaking often demands Chevron deference; and the rule is judged accordingly. All
would agree, we should think, that the statutory phrase “legitimate
medical purpose” is a generality, susceptible to more precise
definition and open to varying constructions, and thus ambiguous in
the relevant sense. Chevron deference, however, is not
accorded merely because the statute is ambiguous and an
administrative official is involved. To begin with, the rule must
be promulgated pursuant to authority Congress has delegated to the
official. Mead, 533 U. S., at 226–227.

															   The Attorney General has
rulemaking power to fulfill his duties under the CSA. The specific
respects in which he is authorized to make rules, however, instruct
us that he is not authorized to make a rule declaring illegitimate
a medical standard for care and treatment of patients that is
specifically authorized under state law.

															   The starting point for this inquiry is, of
course, the language of the delegation provision itself. In many
cases authority is clear because the statute gives an agency broad
power to enforce all provisions of the statute. See, e.g., National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand
X Internet Services, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005) (slip op., at
8) (explaining that a Federal Communications Commission regulation
received Chevron deference because “Congress has delegated
to the Commission the authority to . . . ‘prescribe such rules and
regulations as may be necessary in the public interest to carry out
the provisions’ of the Act” (quoting 47 U. S. C. §201(b))); Household Credit Services, Inc. v. Pfennig, 541 U. S. 232 , 238 (2004) (giving Chevron deference to a Federal Reserve Board regulation
where “Congress has expressly delegated to the Board the authority
to prescribe regulations . . . as, in the judgment of the Board,
‘are necessary or proper to effectuate the purposes
of ’ ” the statute (quoting 15 U. S. C. §1604(a))). The
CSA does not grant the Attorney General this broad authority to
promulgate rules.

															   The CSA gives the Attorney General limited
powers, to be exercised in specific ways. His rulemaking authority
under the CSA is described in two provisions: (1) “The Attorney
General is authorized to promulgate rules and regulations and to
charge reasonable fees relating to the registration and control of
the manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of controlled
substances and to listed chemicals,” 21 U. S. C. A. §821
(Supp. 2005); and (2) “The Attorney General may promulgate and
enforce any rules, regulations, and procedures which he may deem
necessary and appropriate for the efficient execution of his
functions under this subchapter,” 21 U. S. C. §871(b). As is
evident from these sections, Congress did not delegate to the
Attorney General authority to carry out or effect all provisions of
the CSA. Rather, he can promulgate rules relating only to
“registration” and “control,” and “for the efficient execution of
his functions” under the statute.

															   Turning first to the Attorney General’s
authority to make regulations for the “control” of drugs, this
delegation cannot sustain the Interpretive Rule’s attempt to define
standards of medical practice. Control is a term of art in the CSA.
“As used in this subchapter,” §802––the subchapter that includes
§821––

															“The term ‘control’ means to add a drug or other
substance, or immediate precursor, to a schedule under part B of
this subchapter, whether by transfer from another schedule or
otherwise.” §802(5).

															To exercise his scheduling power, the Attorney
General must follow a detailed set of procedures, including
requesting a scientific and medical evaluation from the Secretary.
See 21 U. S. C. A. §§811, 812 (main ed. and Supp. 2005).
The statute is also specific as to the manner in which the Attorney
General must exercise this authority: “Rules of the Attorney
General under this subsection [regarding scheduling] shall be made
on the record after opportunity for a hearing pursuant to the
rulemaking procedures prescribed by [the Administrative Procedure
Act, 5 U. S. C. §553].” 21 U. S. C. §811(a). The Interpretive
Rule now under consideration does not concern the scheduling of
substances and was not issued after the required procedures for
rules regarding scheduling, so it cannot fall under the Attorney
General’s “control” authority.

															   Even if “control” in §821 were understood to
signify something other than its statutory definition, it would not
support the Interpretive Rule. The statutory references to
“control” outside the scheduling context make clear that the
Attorney General can establish controls “against diversion,” e.g. , §823(a)(1), but do not give him authority to define
diversion based on his view of legitimate medical practice. As
explained below, the CSA’s express limitations on the Attorney
General’s authority, and other indications from the statutory
scheme, belie any notion that the Attorney General has been granted
this implicit authority. Indeed, if “control” were given the
expansive meaning required to sustain the Interpretive Rule, it
would transform the carefully described limits on the Attorney
General’s authority over registration and scheduling into mere
suggestions.

															   We turn, next, to the registration provisions
of the CSA. Before 1984, the Attorney General was required to
register any physician who was authorized by his State. The
Attorney General could only deregister a physician who falsified
his application, was convicted of a felony relating to controlled
substances, or had his state license or registration revoked. See
84 Stat. 1255. The CSA was amended in 1984 to allow the Attorney
General to deny registration to an applicant “if he determines that
the issuance of such registration would be inconsistent with the
public interest.” 21 U. S. C. §823(f). Registration may also be
revoked or suspended by the Attorney General on the same grounds.
§824(a)(4). In determining consistency with the public interest,
the Attorney General must, as discussed above, consider five
factors, including: the State’s recommendation; compliance with
state, federal, and local laws regarding controlled substances; and
public health and safety. §823(f).

															   The Interpretive Rule cannot be justified
under this part of the statute. It does not undertake the
five-factor analysis and concerns much more than registration. Nor
does the Interpretive Rule on its face purport to be an application
of the registration provision in §823(f). It is, instead, an
interpretation of the substantive federal law requirements (under
21 CFR §1306.04 (2005)) for a valid prescription. It begins by
announcing that assisting suicide is not a “legitimate medical
purpose” under §1306.04, and that dispensing controlled substances
to assist a suicide violates the CSA. 66 Fed. Reg. 56608 (2001).
Violation is a criminal offense, and often a felony, under 21 U.
S. C. §841 (2000 ed. and Supp. II). The Interpretive Rule thus
purports to declare that using controlled substances for
physician-assisted suicide is a crime, an authority that goes well
beyond the Attorney General’s statutory power to register or
deregister.

															   The Attorney General’s deregistration power,
of course, may carry implications for criminal enforcement because
if a physician dispenses a controlled substance after he is
deregistered, he violates §841. The Interpretive Rule works in the
opposite direction, however: it declares certain conduct criminal,
placing in jeopardy the registration of any physician who engages
in that conduct. To the extent the Interpretive Rule concerns
registration, it simply states the obvious because one of the five
factors the Attorney General must consider in deciding the “public
interest” is “[c]ompliance with applicable State, Federal, or local
laws relating to controlled substances.” 21 U. S. C. §823(f)(4).
The problem with the design of the Interpretive Rule is that it
cannot, and does not, explain why the Attorney General has the
authority to decide what constitutes an underlying violation of the
CSA in the first place. The explanation the Government seems to
advance is that the Attorney General’s authority to decide whether
a physician’s actions are inconsistent with the “public interest”
provides the basis for the Interpretive Rule.

															   By this logic, however, the Attorney General
claims extraordinary authority. If the Attorney General’s argument
were correct, his power to deregister necessarily would include the
greater power to criminalize even the actions of registered
physicians, whenever they engage in conduct he deems illegitimate.
This power to criminalize—unlike his power over registration, which
must be exercised only after considering five express statutory
factors—would be unrestrained. It would be anomalous for Congress
to have so painstakingly described the Attorney General’s limited
authority to deregister a single physician or schedule a single
drug, but to have given him, just by implication, authority to
declare an entire class of activity outside “the course of
professional practice,” and therefore a criminal violation of the
CSA. See Federal Maritime Comm’n v. Seatrain Lines,
Inc., 411 U. S.
726 , 744 (1973) (“In light of these specific grants of . . .
authority, we are unwilling to construe the ambiguous provisions .
. . to serve this purpose [of creating further authority]—a purpose
for which it obviously was not intended”). Sutton v. United Air Lines,
Inc., 527 U. S.
471 (1999), is instructive. The statute at issue was the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which, like the CSA,
divides interpretive authority among various Executive actors. The
Court relied on “the terms and structure of the ADA” to decide that
neither the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, nor any other
agency had authority to define “disability” in the ADA. Id., at 479. Specifically, the delegating provision stated
that the EEOC “shall issue regulations . . . to carry out this
subchapter,” 42 U. S. C. §12116, and the section of the statute
defining “disability” was in a different subchapter. The Court did
not accept the idea that because “the employment subchapter, i.e. , ‘ this subchapter,’ includes other
provisions that use the defined terms, . . . [t]he EEOC might
elaborate, through regulations, on the meaning of ‘disability’ . .
. if elaboration is needed in order to ‘carry out’ the substantive
provisions of ‘this subchapter.’ ” 527 U. S., at 514 (Breyer,
J., dissenting). See also Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U. S. 638 , 649–650
(1990) (holding that a delegation of authority to promulgate motor
vehicle safety “standards” did not include the authority
to decide the pre-emptive scope of the federal statute because
“[n]o such delegation regarding [the statute’s] enforcement
provisions is evident in the statute”).

															   The same principle controls here. It is not
enough that the terms “public interest,” “public health and
safety,” and “Federal law” are used in the part of the statute over
which the Attorney General has authority. The statutory terms
“public interest” and “public health” do not call on the Attorney
General, or any other Executive official, to make an independent
assessment of the meaning of federal law. The Attorney General did
not base the Interpretive Rule on an application of the five-factor
test generally, or the “public health and safety” factor
specifically. Even if he had, it is doubtful the Attorney General
could cite the “public interest” or “public health” to deregister a
physician simply because he deemed a controversial practice
permitted by state law to have an illegitimate medical purpose.

															   As for the federal law factor, though it does
require the Attorney General to decide “[c]ompliance” with the law,
it does not suggest that he may decide what the law says. Were it
otherwise, the Attorney General could authoritatively interpret
“State” and “local laws,” which are also included in 21 U. S. C.
§823(f), despite the obvious constitutional problems in his doing
so. Just as he must evaluate compliance with federal law in
deciding about registration, the Attorney General must as surely
evaluate compliance with federal law in deciding whether to
prosecute; but this does not entitle him to Chevron deference. See Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152 , 177
(1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (“The Justice
Department, of course, has a very specific responsibility to
determine for itself what this statute means, in order to decide
when to prosecute; but we have never thought that the
interpretation of those charged with prosecuting criminal statutes
is entitled to deference”).

															   The limits on the Attorney General’s authority
to define medical standards for the care and treatment of patients
bear also on the proper interpretation of §871(b). This section
allows the Attorney General to best determine how to execute “his
functions.” It is quite a different matter, however, to say that
the Attorney General can define the substantive standards of
medical practice as part of his authority. To find a delegation of
this extent in §871 would put that part of the statute in
considerable tension with the narrowly defined delegation
concerning control and registration. It would go, moreover, against
the plain language of the text to treat a delegation for the
“execution” of his functions as a further delegation to define
other functions well beyond the statute’s specific grants of
authority. When Congress chooses to delegate a power of this
extent, it does so not by referring back to the administrator’s
functions but by giving authority over the provisions of the
statute he is to interpret. See, e.g., National Cable
& Telecommunications Assn., 545 U. S. ___; Household
Credit Services, 541 U. S. 232 .

															   The authority desired by the Government is
inconsistent with the design of the statute in other fundamental
respects. The Attorney General does not have the sole delegated
authority under the CSA. He must instead share it with, and in some
respects defer to, the Secretary, whose functions are likewise
delineated and confined by the statute. The CSA allocates
decisionmaking powers among statutory actors so that medical
judgments, if they are to be decided at the federal level and for
the limited objects of the statute, are placed in the hands of the
Secretary. In the scheduling context, for example, the Secretary’s
recommendations on scientific and medical matters bind the Attorney
General. The Attorney General cannot control a substance if the
Secretary disagrees. 21 U. S. C. §811(b). See H. R. Rep. No.
91–1444, pt. 1, p. 33 (1970) (the section “is not intended to
authorize the Attorney General to undertake or support medical and
scientific research [for the purpose of scheduling], which is
within the competence of the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare”).

															   In a similar vein the 1970 Act’s regulation of
medical practice with respect to drug rehabilitation gives the
Attorney General a limited role; for it is the Secretary who, after
consultation with the Attorney General and national medical groups,
“determine[s] the appropriate methods of professional practice in
the medical treatment of … narcotic addiction.” 42 U. S. C.
§290bb–2a; see 21 U. S. C. §823(g) (2000 ed. and Supp. II)
(stating that the Attorney General shall register practitioners who
dispense drugs for narcotics treatment when the Secretary has
determined the applicant is qualified to treat addicts and the
Attorney General has concluded the applicant will comply with
record keeping and security regulations); Moore, 423 U.
S., at 144 (noting that in enacting the addiction-treatment
provisions, Congress sought to change the fact “that ‘criminal
prosecutions’ in the past had turned on the opinions of federal
prosecutors”); H. R. Rep. No. 93–884, p. 6 (1974) (“This
section preserves the distinctions found in the [CSA] between the
functions of the Attorney General and the Secretary . . . . All
decisions of a medical nature are to be made by the Secretary . . .
. Law enforcement decisions respecting the security of stocks of
narcotics drugs and the maintenance of records on such drugs are to
be made by the Attorney General”).

															   Post enactment congressional commentary on the
CSA’s regulation of medical practice is also at odds with the
Attorney General’s claimed authority to determine appropriate
medical standards. In 1978, in preparation for ratification of the
Convention on Psychotropic Substances, Feb. 21, 1971, [1979–1980]
32 U. S. T. 543, T. I. A. S. No. 9725, Congress
decided it would implement the United States’ compliance through
“the framework of the procedures and criteria for classification of
substances provided in the” CSA. 21 U. S. C. §801a(3). It did
so to ensure that “nothing in the Convention will interfere with
ethical medical practice in this country as determined by [the
Secretary] on the basis of a consensus of the views of the American
medical and scientific community.” Ibid. The structure of the CSA, then, conveys
unwillingness to cede medical judgments to an Executive official
who lacks medical expertise. In interpreting statutes that divide
authority, the Court has recognized: “Because historical
familiarity and policymaking expertise account in the first
instance for the presumption that Congress delegates interpretive
lawmaking power to the agency rather than to the reviewing court,
we presume here that Congress intended to invest interpretive power
in the administrative actor in the best position to develop these
attributes.” Martin v. Occupational Safety and Health
Review Comm’n, 499 U. S. 144 , 153
(1991) (citations omitted). This presumption works against a
conclusion that the Attorney General has authority to make
quintessentially medical judgments.

															   The Government contends the Attorney General’s
decision here is a legal, not a medical, one. This generality,
however, does not suffice. The Attorney General’s Interpretive
Rule, and the Office of Legal Counsel memo it incorporates, place
extensive reliance on medical judgments and the views of the
medical community in concluding that assisted suicide is not a
“legitimate medical purpose.” See 66 Fed. Reg. 56608 (noting the
“medical” distinctions between assisting suicide and giving
sufficient medication to alleviate pain); Memorandum from Office of
Legal Counsel to Attorney General (June 27, 2001), App. to Pet. for
Cert. 121a–122a, and n. 17 (discussing the “Federal medical policy”
against physician-assisted suicide), id., at 124a–130a
(examining views of the medical community). This confirms that the
authority claimed by the Attorney General is both beyond his
expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and
design.

															   The idea that Congress gave the Attorney
General such broad and unusual authority through an implicit
delegation in the CSA’s registration provision is not sustainable.
“Congress, we have held, does not alter the fundamental details of
a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does
not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 , 468
(2001); see FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Corp., 529 U.
S. 120 , 160 (2000) (“[W]e are confident that Congress could not
have intended to delegate a decision of such economic and political
significance to an agency in so cryptic a fashion”).

															   The importance of the issue of
physician-assisted suicide, which has been the subject of an
“earnest and profound debate” across the country, Glucksberg, 521 U. S., at 735, makes the oblique form of
the claimed delegation all the more suspect. Under the Government’s
theory, moreover, the medical judgments the Attorney General could
make are not limited to physician-assisted suicide. Were this
argument accepted, he could decide whether any particular drug may
be used for any particular purpose, or indeed whether a physician
who administers any controversial treatment could be deregistered.
This would occur, under the Government’s view, despite the
statute’s express limitation of the Attorney General’s authority to
registration and control, with attendant restrictions on each of
those functions, and despite the statutory purposes to combat drug
abuse and prevent illicit drug trafficking.

															   We need not decide whether Chevron deference would be warranted for an interpretation issued by the
Attorney General concerning matters closer to his role under the
CSA, namely preventing doctors from engaging in illicit drug
trafficking. In light of the foregoing, however, the CSA does not
give the Attorney General authority to issue the Interpretive Rule
as a statement with the force of law.

															   If, in the course of exercising his authority,
the Attorney General uses his analysis in the Interpretive Rule
only for guidance in deciding when to prosecute or deregister, then
the question remains whether his substantive interpretation is
correct. Since the Interpretive Rule was not promulgated pursuant
to the Attorney General’s authority, its interpretation of
“legitimate medical purpose” does not receive Chevron deference. Instead, it receives deference only in accordance with Skidmore . “The weight of such a judgment in a particular
case will depend upon the thoroughness evident in its
consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with
earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give
it power to persuade, if lacking power to control.” 323 U. S., at
140; see also Mead, 533 U. S., at 235 (noting that an
opinion receiving Skidmore deference may “claim the merit
of its writer’s thoroughness, logic, and expertness, its fit with
prior interpretations, and any other sources of weight”). The
deference here is tempered by the Attorney General’s lack of
expertise in this area and the apparent absence of any consultation
with anyone outside the Department of Justice who might aid in a
reasoned judgment. In any event, under Skidmore , we follow
an agency’s rule only to the extent it is persuasive, see Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576 , 587
(2000); and for the reasons given and for further reasons set out
below, we do not find the Attorney General’s opinion
persuasive.

															III

															   As we have noted before, the CSA
“repealed most of the earlier antidrug laws in favor of a
comprehensive regime to combat the international and interstate
traffic in illicit drugs.” Raich , 545 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 9). In doing so, Congress sought to “conquer drug abuse and
to control the legitimate and illegitimate traffic in controlled
substances.” Ibid . It comes as little surprise, then, that
we have not considered the extent to which the CSA regulates
medical practice beyond prohibiting a doctor from acting as a drug
“ ‘pusher’ ” instead of a physician. Moore , 423
U. S., at 143. In Moore , we addressed a situation in which
a doctor “sold drugs, not for legitimate purposes, but primarily
for the profits to be derived therefrom.” Id. , at 135
(quoting H. R. Rep. No. 91–1444, pt. 1, at 10; internal
quotation marks omitted). There the defendant, who had engaged in
large-scale overprescribing of methadone, “concede[d] in his brief
that he did not observe generally accepted medical practices.” 423
U. S., at 126. And in United States v. Oakland
Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, 532 U. S. 483 (2001),
Congress’ express determination that marijuana had no accepted
medical use foreclosed any argument about statutory coverage of
drugs available by a doctor’s prescription.

															   In deciding whether the CSA can
be read as prohibiting physician-assisted suicide, we look to the
statute’s text and design. The statute and our case law amply
support the conclusion that Congress regulates medical practice
insofar as it bars doctors from using their prescription-writing
powers as a means to engage in illicit drug dealing and trafficking
as conventionally understood. Beyond this, however, the statute
manifests no intent to regulate the practice of medicine generally.
The silence is understandable given the structure and limitations
of federalism, which allow the States “ ‘great latitude under
their police powers to legislate as to the protection of the lives,
limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons.’ ” Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470 , 475
(1996) (quoting Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 , 756
(1985)).

															   The structure and operation of the CSA presume
and rely upon a functioning medical profession regulated under the
States’ police powers. The Attorney General can register a
physician to dispense controlled substances “if the applicant is
authorized to dispense . . . controlled substances under the laws
of the State in which he practices.” 21 U. S. C. §823(f). When
considering whether to revoke a physician’s registration, the
Attorney General looks not just to violations of federal drug laws;
but he “shall” also consider “[t]he recommendation of the
appropriate state licensing board or professional disciplinary
authority” and the registrant’s compliance with state and local
drug laws. Ibid . The very definition of a “practitioner”
eligible to prescribe includes physicians “licensed, registered, or
otherwise permitted, by the United States or the jurisdiction in
which he practices” to dispense controlled substances. §802(21).
Further cautioning against the conclusion that the CSA effectively
displaces the States’ general regulation of medical practice is the
Act’s pre-emption provision, which indicates that, absent a
positive conflict, none of the Act’s provisions should be
“construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to
occupy the field in which that provision operates … to the
exclusion of any State law on the same subject matter which would
otherwise be within the authority of the State.” §903.

															   Oregon’s regime is an example of the state
regulation of medical practice that the CSA presupposes. Rather
than simply decriminalizing assisted suicide, ODWDA limits its
exercise to the attending physicians of terminally ill patients,
physicians who must be licensed by Oregon’s Board of Medical
Examiners. Ore. Rev. Stat. §§127.815, 127.800(10) (2003). The
statute gives attending physicians a central role, requiring them
to provide prognoses and prescriptions, give information about
palliative alternatives and counseling, and ensure patients are
competent and acting voluntarily. §127.815. Any eligible patient
must also get a second opinion from another registered physician,
§127.820, and the statute’s safeguards require physicians to keep
and submit to inspection detailed records of their actions,
§§127.855, 127.865.

															   Even though regulation of health and safety is
“primarily, and historically, a matter of local concern,” Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories,
Inc., 471 U. S.
707 , 719 (1985), there is no question that the Federal
Government can set uniform national standards in these areas. See Raich, supra , at ___ (slip op., at 6). In connection to
the CSA, however, we find only one area in which Congress set
general, uniform standards of medical practice. Title I of the
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, of
which the CSA was Title II, provides that

															“[The Secretary], after consultation with the
Attorney General and with national organizations representative of
persons with knowledge and experience in the treatment of narcotic
addicts, shall determine the appropriate methods of professional
practice in the medical treatment of the narcotic addiction of
various classes of narcotic addicts, and shall report thereon from
time to time to the Congress.” §4, 84 Stat. 1241, codified at 42 U.
S. C. §290bb–2a.

															This provision strengthens the understanding of the
CSA as a statute combating recreational drug abuse, and also
indicates that when Congress wants to regulate medical practice in
the given scheme, it does so by explicit language in the
statute.

															   In the face of the CSA’s silence on the
practice of medicine generally and its recognition of state
regulation of the medical profession it is difficult to defend the
Attorney General’s declaration that the statute impliedly
criminalizes physician-assisted suicide. This difficulty is
compounded by the CSA’s consistent delegation of medical judgments
to the Secretary and its otherwise careful allocation of powers for
enforcing the limited objects of the CSA. See Part II–B, supra . The Government’s attempt to meet this challenge
rests, for the most part, on the CSA’s requirement that every
Schedule II drug be dispensed pursuant to a “written prescription
of a practitioner.” 21 U. S. C. §829(a). A prescription, the
Government argues, necessarily implies that the substance is being
made available to a patient for a legitimate medical purpose. The
statute, in this view, requires an anterior judgment about the term
“medical” or “medicine.” The Government contends ordinary usage of
these words ineluctably refers to a healing or curative art, which
by these terms cannot embrace the intentional hastening of a
patient’s death. It also points to the teachings of Hippocrates,
the positions of prominent medical organizations, the Federal
Government, and the judgment of the 49 States that have not
legalized physician-assisted suicide as further support for the
proposition that the practice is not legitimate medicine. See Brief
for Petitioners 22–24; Memorandum from Office of Legal Counsel to
Attorney General, App. to Pet. for Cert. 124a–130a.

															   On its own, this understanding of medicine’s
boundaries is at least reasonable. The primary problem with the
Government’s argument, however, is its assumption that the CSA
impliedly authorizes an Executive officer to bar a use simply
because it may be inconsistent with one reasonable understanding of
medical practice. Viewed alone, the prescription requirement may
support such an understanding, but statutes “should not be read as
a series of unrelated and isolated provisions.” Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561 , 570
(1995). The CSA’s substantive provisions and their arrangement
undermine this as- sertion of an expansive federal authority to
regulate medicine.

															   The statutory criteria for deciding what
substances are controlled, determinations which are central to the
Act, consistently connect the undefined term “drug abuse” with
addiction or abnormal effects on the nervous system. When the
Attorney General schedules drugs, he must consider a substance’s
psychic or physiological dependence liability. 21 U. S. C.
§811(c)(7). To classify a substance in Schedules II through V, the
Attorney General must find abuse of the drug leads to psychological
or physical dependence. §812(b). Indeed, the differentiation of
Schedules II through V turns in large part on a substance’s
habit-forming potential: The more addictive a substance, the
stricter the controls. Ibid . When Congress wanted to
extend the CSA’s regulation to substances not obviously habit
forming or psychotropic, moreover, it relied not on Executive
ingenuity, but rather on specific legislation. See §1902(a) of the
Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 4851 (placing
anabolic steroids in Schedule III).

															   The statutory scheme with which the CSA is
intertwined further confirms a more limited understanding of the
prescription requirement. When the Secretary considers FDA approval
of a substance with “stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic
effect,” he must forward the information to the Attorney General
for possible scheduling. Shedding light on Congress’ understanding
of drug abuse, this requirement appears under the heading “Abuse
potential.” 21 U. S. C. §811(f). Similarly, when Congress
prepared to implement the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, it
did so through the CSA. §801a.

															   The Interpretive Rule rests on a reading of
the prescription requirement that is persuasive only to the extent
one scrutinizes the provision without the illumination of the rest
of the statute. See Massachusetts v. Morash, 490 U. S. 107 ,
114–115 (1989). Viewed in its context, the prescription requirement
is better understood as a provision that ensures patients use
controlled substances under the supervision of a doctor so as to
prevent addiction and recreational abuse. As a corollary, the
provision also bars doctors from peddling to patients who crave the
drugs for those prohibited uses. See Moore, 423 U. S., at
135, 143. To read prescriptions for assisted suicide as
constituting “drug abuse” under the CSA is discordant with the
phrase’s consistent use throughout the statute, not to mention its
ordinary meaning.

															   The Government’s interpretation of the
prescription requirement also fails under the objection that the
Attorney General is an unlikely recipient of such broad authority,
given the Secretary’s primacy in shaping medical policy under the
CSA, and the statute’s otherwise careful allocation of
decisionmaking powers. Just as the conventions of expression
indicate that Congress is unlikely to alter a statute’s obvious
scope and division of authority through muffled hints, the
background principles of our federal system also belie the notion
that Congress would use such an obscure grant of authority to
regulate areas traditionally supervised by the States’ police
power. It is unnecessary even to consider the application of clear
statement requirements, see, e.g. , United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336 , 349
(1971); cf. BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation, 511 U. S. 531 ,
544–546 (1994), or presumptions against pre-emption, see, e.g. , Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran, 536
U. S. 355 , 387 (2002), to reach this commonsense conclusion.
For all these reasons, we conclude the CSA’s prescription
requirement does not authorize the Attorney General to bar
dispensing controlled substances for assisted suicide in the face
of a state medical regime permitting such conduct.

															IV

															   The Government, in the end,
maintains that the prescription requirement delegates to a single
Executive officer the power to effect a radical shift of authority
from the States to the Federal Government to define general
standards of medical practice in every locality. The text and
structure of the CSA show that Congress did not have this
far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance and the
congressional role in maintaining it.

															   The judgment of the Court of
Appeals is

															Affirmed. 546 U. S. ____ (2006) 546 U. S. ____ (2006) 546 U. S. ____ (2006) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-623 ALBERTO R. GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al.,
PETITIONERS v. OREGON et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[January 17, 2006]

															   Justice Scalia, with whom Chief
Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.

															   The Court concludes that the
Attorney General lacked authority to declare assisted suicide
illicit under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), because the CSA
is concerned only with “ illicit drug dealing and
trafficking,” ante , at 23 (emphasis added). This
question-begging conclusion is obscured by a flurry of arguments
that distort the statute and disregard settled principles of our
interpretive jurisprudence.

															   Contrary to the Court’s analysis, this case
involves not one but three independently sufficient
grounds for reversing the Ninth Circuit’s judgment. First, the
Attorney General’s interpretation of “legitimate medical purpose”
in 21 CFR §1306.04 (2005) (hereinafter Regulation) is clearly
valid, given the substantial deference we must accord it under Auer v. Robbins , 519 U. S. 452 , 461
(1997), and his two remaining conclusions follow naturally from
this interpretation. See Part I, infra . Second, even if
this interpretation of the Regulation is entitled to lesser
deference or no deference at all, it is by far the most natural
interpretation of the Regulation—whose validity is not challenged
here. This interpretation is thus correct even upon de
novo review. See Part II, infra . Third, even if that
interpretation of the Regulation were incorrect, the Attorney
General’s independent interpretation of the statutory phrase “public interest” in 21 U. S. C. §§824(a) and 823(f),
and his implicit interpretation of the statutory phrase “public
health and safety” in §823(f)(5), are entitled to deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources
Defense Council, Inc. , 467 U. S. 837 (1984), and they are
valid under Chevron . See Part III, infra . For
these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

															I

															   The Interpretive Rule issued by
the Attorney General (hereinafter Directive) provides in relevant
part as follows:

															“For the reasons set forth in the OLC Opinion, I
hereby determine that assisting suicide is not a ‘legitimate
medical purpose’ within the meaning of 21 CFR §1306.04 (2001), and
that prescribing, dispensing, or administering federally controlled
substances to assist suicide violates the CSA. Such conduct by a
physician registered to dispense controlled substances may ‘render
his registration … inconsistent with the public interest’ and
therefore subject to possible suspension or revocation under 21 U.
S. C. [§]824(a)(4).” 66 Fed. Reg. 56608 (2001).

															The Directive thus purports to do three distinct
things: (1) to interpret the phrase “legitimate medical purpose” in
the Regulation to exclude physician-assisted suicide; (2) to
determine that prescribing, dispensing, and administering federally
controlled substances to assist suicide violates the CSA; and (3)
to determine that participating in physician-assisted suicide may
render a practitioner’s registration “inconsistent with the public
interest” within the meaning of 21 U. S. C. §§823(f) and
824(a)(4) (which incorporates §823(f) by reference). The Court’s
analysis suffers from an unremitting failure to distinguish among
these distinct propositions in the Directive.

															   As an initial matter, the validity of the
Regulation’s interpretation of “prescription” in §829 to require a
“legitimate medical purpose” is not at issue. Respondents conceded
the validity of this interpretation in the lower court, see Oregon v. Ashcroft , 368 F. 3d 1118, 1133
(CA9 2004), and they have not challenged it here. By its assertion
that the Regulation merely restates the statutory standard of 21 U.
S. C. §830(b)(3)(A)(ii), see ante , at 10, the Court
likewise accepts that the “legitimate medical purpose”
interpretation for prescriptions is proper. See also ante ,
at 11 (referring to “legitimate medical purpose” as a “statutory
phrase”). It is beyond dispute, then, that a “prescription” under
§829 must issue for a “legitimate medical purpose.”

															A

															   Because the Regulation was
promulgated by the Attorney General, and because the Directive
purported to interpret the language of the Regulation, see 66 Fed.
Reg. 56608, this case calls for the straightforward application of
our rule that an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations is
“controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the
regulation.” Auer , supra , at 461 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The Court reasons that Auer is
inapplicable because the Regulation “does little more than restate
the terms of the statute itself.” Ante , at 9. “Simply
put,” the Court asserts, “the existence of a parroting regulation
does not change the fact that the question here is not the meaning
of the regulation but the meaning of the statute.” Ante ,
at 10.

															   To begin with, it is doubtful
that any such exception to the Auer rule exists. The Court
cites no authority for it, because there is none. To the contrary,
our unanimous decision in Auer makes clear that broadly
drawn regulations are entitled to no less respect than narrow ones.
“A rule requiring the Secretary to construe his own regulations
narrowly would make little sense, since he is free to write the
regulations as broadly as he wishes, subject only to the limits
imposed by the statute .” 519 U. S., at 463 (emphasis
added).

															   Even if there were an antiparroting canon,
however, it would have no application here. The Court’s description
of 21 CFR §1306.04 (2005) as a regulation that merely
“paraphrase[s] the statutory language,” ante , at 10, is
demonstrably false. In relevant part, the Regulation interprets the
word “prescription” as it appears in 21 U. S. C. §829, which
governs the dispensation of controlled substances other than those
on Schedule I (which may not be dispensed at all). Entitled
“[p]rescriptions,” §829 requires, with certain exceptions not
relevant here, “the written prescription of a practitioner”
(usually a medical doctor) for the dispensation of Schedule II
substances (§829(a)), “a written or oral prescription” for
substances on Schedules III and IV (§829(b)), and no prescription
but merely a “medical purpose” for the dispensation of Schedule V
substances (§829(c)).

															   As used in this section, “prescription” is
susceptible of at least three reasonable interpretations. First, it
might mean any oral or written direction of a practitioner for the
dispensation of drugs. See United States v. Moore , 423
U. S. 122 , 137, n. 13 (1975) (“On its face §829 addresses
only the form that a prescription must take… . [Section] 829
by its terms does not limit the authority of a practitioner”).
Second, in light of the requirement of a “medical purpose” for the
dispensation of Schedule V substances, see §829(c), it might mean a
practitioner’s oral or written direction for the dispensation of
drugs that the practitioner believes to be for a legitimate medical
purpose. See Webster’s New International Dictionary 1954 (2d ed.
1950) (hereinafter Webster’s Second) (defining “prescription” as
“[a] written direction for the preparation and use of a medicine ”); id. , at 1527 (defining “medicine” as
“[a]ny substance or preparation used in treating disease ”)
(emphases added). Finally, “prescription” might refer to a
practitioner’s direction for the dispensation of drugs that serves
an objectively legitimate medical purpose, regardless of
the practitioner’s subjective judgment about the
legitimacy of the anticipated use. See ibid. The Regulation at issue constricts or
clarifies the statute by adopting the last and narrowest of these
three possible interpretations of the undefined statutory term: “A
prescription for a controlled substance to be effective must be
issued for a legitimate medical purpose … .” 21 CFR
§1306.04(a) (2005). We have previously acknowledged that
the Regulation gives added content to the text of the statute: “The
medical purpose requirement explicit in subsection (c) [of §829]
could be implicit in subsections (a) and (b). Regulation §[1]306.04
makes it explicit.” Moore , supra , at 137,
n. 13.[ Footnote 1 ]

															   The Court points out that the Regulation
adopts some of the phrasing employed in unrelated sections of the
statute. See ante , at 10. This is irrelevant. A regulation
that significantly clarifies the meaning of an otherwise ambiguous
statutory provision is not a “parroting” regulation, regardless of the sources that the agency draws upon for
the clarification. Moreover, most of the statutory phrases that the
Court cites as appearing in the Regulation, see ibid. (citing 21 U. S. C. §§812(b) (“ ‘currently accepted
medical use’ ”), 829(c) (“ ‘medical purpose’ ”),
802(21) (“ ‘in the course of professional practice’ ”)),
are inapposite because they do not “parrot” the only phrase in the Regulation that the Directive purported
to construe. See 66 Fed. Reg. 56608 (“I hereby determine that
assisting suicide is not a ‘legitimate medical purpose’ within the
meaning of 21 CFR §1306.04 …”). None of them includes the key
word “legitimate,” which gives the most direct support to the
Directive’s theory that §829(c) presupposes a uniform federal
standard of medical practice.[ Footnote 2 ]

															   Since the Regulation does not run afowl (so to
speak) of the Court’s newly invented prohibition of “parroting”;
and since the Directive represents the agency’s own interpretation
of that concededly valid regulation; the only question remaining is
whether that interpretation is “plainly erroneous or inconsistent
with the regulation”; otherwise, it is “controlling.” Auer , supra , at 461 (internal quotation marks
omitted). This is not a difficult question. The Directive is
assuredly valid insofar as it interprets “prescription” to require
a medical purpose that is “legitimate” as a matter of federal law—since that is an interpretation of
“prescription” that we ourselves have adopted. Webb v. United States , 249 U. S. 96 (1919), was
a prosecution under the Harrison Act of a doctor who wrote
prescriptions of morphine “for the purpose of providing the user
with morphine sufficient to keep him comfortable by maintaining his
customary use,” id. , at 99. The dispositive issue in the
case was whether such authorizations were “prescriptions” within
the meaning of §2(b) of the Harrison Act, predecessor to the CSA. Ibid. We held that “to call such an order for the use of
morphine a physician’s prescription would be so plain a perversion
of meaning that no discussion of the subject is required.” Id. , at 99–100. Like the Directive, this interprets
“prescription” to require medical purpose that is legitimate as a
matter of federal law. And the Directive is also assuredly valid
insofar as it interprets “legitimate medical purpose” as a matter
of federal law to exclude physician-assisted suicide, because that
is not only a permissible but indeed the most natural
interpretation of that phrase. See Part II, infra. B Even if the Regulation merely
parroted the statute, and the Directive therefore had to be treated
as though it construed the statute directly, see ante , at 11,
the Directive would still be entitled to deference under Chevron . The Court does not take issue with the Solicitor
General’s contention that no alleged procedural defect, such as the
absence of notice-and-comment rulemaking before promulgation of the
Directive, renders Chevron inapplicable here. See Reply
Brief for Petitioners 4 (citing Barnhart v. Walton , 535
U. S. 212 , 219–222 (2002); 5 U. S. C. §553(b)(3)(A)
(exempting interpretive rules from notice-and-comment rulemaking)).
Instead, the Court holds that the Attorney General lacks
interpretive authority to issue the Directive at all, on the ground
that the explicit delegation provision, 21 U. S. C. A.
§821 (Supp. 2005), limits his rulemaking authority to “registration
and control,” which (according to the Court) are not implicated by
the Directive’s interpretation of the prescription requirement. See ante , at 12–14.

															   Setting aside the implicit
delegation inherent in Congress’s use of the undefined term
“prescription” in §829, the Court’s reading of “control” in §821 is
manifestly erroneous. The Court urges, ante , at 12–13,
that “control” is a term defined in part A of the subchapter
(entitled “Introductory Provisions”) to mean “to add a drug or
other substance … to a schedule under part B of this
subchapter ,” 21 U. S. C. §802(5) (emphasis added). But
§821 is not included in “part B of this subchapter,” which is
entitled “Authority to Control; Standards and Schedules,” and
consists of the sections related to scheduling , 21 U.
S. C. A. §§811–814 (main ed. and Supp. 2005), where the
statutory definition is uniquely appropriate. Rather, §821 is found
in part C of the subchapter, §§821–830, entitled
“Registration of Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dispensers of
Controlled Substances,” which includes all and only the provisions
relating to the “manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of
controlled substances,” §821. The artificial definition of
“control” in §802(5) has no conceivable application to the use of
that word in §821. Under that definition, “control” must take a substance as its direct object, see 21 U. S. C.
§802(5) (“to add a drug or other substance … to a schedule”)—and
that is how “control” is consistently used throughout part
B . See, e.g. , §§811(b) (“proceedings … to control a drug or other substance”), 811(c) (“each drug or
other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from
the schedules”), 811(d)(1) (“If control is required … the
Attorney General shall issue an order controlling such
drug …”), 812(b) (“Except where control is required … a
drug or other substance may not be placed in any schedule …”). In
§821, by contrast, the term “control” has as its object, not “a
drug or other substance,” but rather the processes of
“manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of controlled
substances.” It could not be clearer that the artificial definition
of “control” in §802(5) is inapplicable. It makes no sense to speak
of “adding the manufacturing, distribution, and dispensing of
substances to a schedule.” We do not force term-of-art definitions
into contexts where they plainly do not fit and produce nonsense.
What is obviously intended in §821 is the ordinary meaning of
“control”—namely, “[t]o exercise restraining or directing influence
over; to dominate; regulate; hence, to hold from action; to curb,”
Webster’s Second 580. “Control” is regularly used in this ordinary
sense elsewhere in part C of the subchapter. See, e.g. , 21 U. S. C. §§823(a)(1), (b)(1), (d)(1),
(e)(1), (h)(1) (“maintenance of effective controls against
diversion”); §§823(a)(5), (d)(5) (“establishment of effective control against diversion”); §823(g)(2)(H)(i) (“to
exercise supervision or control over the practice of
medicine”); §830(b)(1)(C) (“a listed chemical under the control of the regulated person”); §830(c)(2)(D)
(“chemical control laws”) (emphases added).

															   When the word is given its ordinary meaning,
the Attorney General’s interpretation of the prescription
requirement of §829 plainly “relat[es] to the … control of
the … dispensing of controlled substances,” 21 U.
S. C. A. §821 (Supp. 2005) (emphasis added), since a
prescription is the chief requirement for “dispensing” such drugs,
see §829. The same meaning is compelled by the fact that §821 is
the first section not of part B of the subchapter, which deals
entirely with “control” in the artificial sense, but of part C,
every section of which relates to the “registration and control of
the manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of controlled
substances,” §821. See §§822 (persons required to register), 823
(registration requirements), 824 (denial, revocation, or suspension
of registration), 825 (labeling and packaging), 826 (production
quotas for controlled substances), 827 (recordkeeping and reporting
requirements of registrants), 828 (order forms), 829 (prescription
requirements), 830 (regulation of listed chemicals and certain
machines). It would be peculiar for the first section of this part
to authorize rulemaking for matters covered by the previous part. The only sensible interpretation of §821 is
that it gives the Attorney General interpretive authority over the
provisions of part C, all of which “relat[e] to the registration
and control of the manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of
controlled substances.” These provisions include both the
prescription requirement of §829, and the criteria for registration
and deregistration of §§823 and 824 (as relevant below, see Part
III, infra ).[ Footnote
3 ]

															C

															   In sum, the Directive’s
construction of “legitimate medical purpose” is a perfectly valid
agency interpretation of its own regulation; and if not that, a
perfectly valid agency interpretation of the statute. No one
contends that the construction is “plainly erroneous or
inconsistent with the regulation,” Bowles v. Seminole
Rock & Sand Co. , 325 U. S. 410 , 414
(1945), or beyond the scope of ambiguity in the statute, see Chevron , 467 U. S., at 843. In fact, as explained below,
the Directive provides the most natural interpretation of
the Regulation and of the statute. The Directive thus definitively
establishes that a doctor’s order authorizing the dispensation of a
Schedule II substance for the purpose of assisting a suicide is not
a “prescription” within the meaning of §829.

															    Once this conclusion is
established, the other two conclusions in the Directive follow
inevitably. Under our reasoning in Moore , writing
prescriptions that are illegitimate under §829 is certainly not “in
the [usual] course of professional practice” under §802(21) and
thus not “authorized by this subchapter” under §841(a). See 423 U.
S., at 138, 140–141. A doctor who does this may thus be prosecuted
under §841(a), and so it follows that such conduct “violates the
Controlled Substances Act,” 66 Fed. Reg. 56608. And since such
conduct is thus not in “[c]ompliance with applicable … Federal …
laws relating to controlled substances,” 21 U. S. C.
§823(f)(4), and may also be fairly judged to “threaten the public
health and safety,” §823(f)(5), it follows that “[s]uch conduct by
a physician registered to dispense controlled substances may ‘render his registration … inconsistent with the
public interest’ and therefore subject to possible suspension or revocation under 21 U. S. C. [§]824(a)(4).” 66
Fed. Reg. 56608 (emphases added).

															II

															   Even if the Directive were
entitled to no deference whatever, the most reasonable
interpretation of the Regulation and of the statute would produce
the same result. Virtually every relevant source of authoritative
meaning confirms that the phrase “legitimate medical
purpose”[ Footnote 4 ] does not
include intentionally assisting suicide. “Medicine” refers to
“[t]he science and art dealing with the prevention, cure, or
alleviation of disease.” Webster’s Second 1527. The use of the word
“legitimate” connotes an objective standard of “medicine,”
and our presumption that the CSA creates a uniform federal law
regulating the dispensation of controlled substances, see Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield , 490 U. S. 30 , 43 (1989), means that
this objective standard must be a federal one. As recounted in
detail in the memorandum for the Attorney General that is attached
as an appendix to the Directive (OLC Memo), virtually every medical
authority from Hippocrates to the current American Medical
Association (AMA) confirms that assisting suicide has seldom or
never been viewed as a form of “prevention, cure, or alleviation of
disease,” and (even more so) that assisting suicide is not a
“legitimate” branch of that “science and art.” See OLC Memo, App.
to Pet. for Cert. 113a–130a. Indeed, the AMA has determined that
“ ‘[p]hysician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible
with the physician’s role as a healer.’ ” Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U. S. 702 , 731
(1997). “[T]he overwhelming weight of authority in judicial
decisions, the past and present policies of nearly all of the
States and of the Federal Government, and the clear, firm and
unequivocal views of the leading associations within the American
medical and nursing professions, establish that assisting in
suicide … is not a legitimate medical purpose.” OLC Memo, supra , at 129a. See also Glucksberg , supra , at 710, n. 8 (prohibitions or condemnations of
assisted suicide in 50 jurisdictions, including 47 States, the
District of Columbia, and 2 Territories).

															   In the face of this “overwhelming
weight of authority,” the Court’s admission that “[o]n its own,
this understanding of medicine’s boundaries is at least
reasonable ,” ante , at 26 (emphasis added), tests the
limits of understatement. The only explanation for such a
distortion is that the Court confuses the normative inquiry of what the boundaries of medicine should be —which
it is laudably hesitant to undertake—with the objective inquiry of what the accepted definition of “medicine” is .
The same confusion is reflected in the Court’s remarkable statement
that “[t]he primary problem with the Government’s argument … is its
assumption that the CSA impliedly authorizes an Executive officer
to bar a use simply because it may be inconsistent with one
reasonable understanding of medical practice.” Ibid. (emphasis added). The fact that many in Oregon believe that the
boundaries of “legitimate medicine” should be extended to
include assisted suicide does not change the fact that the
overwhelming weight of authority (including the 47 States that
condemn physician-assisted suicide) confirms that they have not yet
been so extended. Not even those of our Eighth Amendment cases most
generous in discerning an “evolution” of national standards would
have found, on this record, that the concept of “legitimate
medicine” has evolved so far. See Roper v. Simmons , 543 U. S. 551 , 564–567
(2005).

															   The Court contends that the phrase “legitimate
medical purpose” cannot be read to establish a broad,
uniform federal standard for the medically proper use of controlled
substances. Ante , at 22. But it also rejects the most
plausible alternative proposition, urged by the State, that any use
authorized under state law constitutes a “legitimate medical
purpose.” (The Court is perhaps leery of embracing this position
because the State candidly admitted at oral argument that, on its
view, a State could exempt from the CSA’s coverage the use of
morphine to achieve euphoria.) Instead, the Court reverse-engineers
an approach somewhere between a uniform national standard and a
state-by-state approach, holding (with no basis in the CSA’s text)
that “legitimate medical purpose” refers to all uses of
drugs unrelated to “addiction and recreational abuse.” Ante , at 27. Thus, though the Court pays lipservice to
state autonomy, see ante , 23–24, its standard for
“legitimate medical purpose” is in fact a hazily defined federal standard based on its purposive reading of the
CSA, and extracted from obliquely relevant sections of the Act. In
particular, relying on its observation that the criteria for
scheduling controlled substances are primarily concerned with
“addiction or abnormal effects on the nervous system,” ante , at 26–27 (citing 21 U. S. C. §§811(c)(7),
812(b), 811(f), 801a), the Court concludes that the CSA’s
prescription requirement must be interpreted in light of this
narrow view of the statute’s purpose.

															   Even assuming, however, that the principal concern of the CSA is the curtailment of
“addiction and recreational abuse,” there is no reason to think
that this is its exclusive concern. We have repeatedly
observed that Congress often passes statutes that sweep more
broadly than the main problem they were designed to address.
“[S]tatutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to
cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the
provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our
legislators by which we are governed.” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. , 523 U. S. 75 , 79 (1998).
See also H. J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell
Telephone Co. , 492 U. S. 229 , 248
(1989).

															   The scheduling provisions of the CSA on which
the Court relies confirm that the CSA’s “design,” ante , at
23, is not as narrow as the Court asserts. In making scheduling
determinations, the Attorney General must not only consider a
drug’s “psychic or physiological dependence liability” as the Court
points out, ante , at 26 (citing 21 U. S. C.
§811(c)(7)), but must also consider such broad factors as “[t]he
state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other
substance,” §811(c)(3), and (most notably) “[w]hat, if any, risk
there is to the public health,” §811(c)(6). If the latter factor
were limited to addiction-related health risks, as the Court
supposes, it would be redundant of §811(c)(7). Moreover, in making
registration determinations regarding manufacturers and
distributors, the Attorney General “shall” consider “such other factors as may be relevant to and consistent with
the public health and safety,” §§823(a)(6), (b)(5), (d)(6), (e)(5)
(emphasis added)—over and above the risk of “diversion” of
controlled substances, §§823(a)(1), (a)(5), (b)(1), (d)(1), (d)(5),
(e)(1). And, most relevant of all, in registering and deregistering physicians , the Attorney General “may deny an application
for such registration if he determines that the issuance of such
registration would be inconsistent with the public interest,”
§823(f); see also §824(a)(4), and in making that determination
“shall” consider “[s]uch other conduct which may threaten the
public health and safety,” §823(f)(5). All of these
provisions, not just those selectively cited by the Court, shed
light upon the CSA’s repeated references to the undefined term
“abuse.” See §§811(a)(1)(A), (c)(1), (c)(4), (c)(5);
§§812(b)(1)(A), (b)(2)(A), (b)(3)(A), (b)(4)(A), (b)(5)(A).

															   By disregarding all these public-interest,
public-health, and public-safety objectives, and limiting the CSA
to “addiction and recreational abuse,” the Court rules out the
prohibition of anabolic-steroid use for bodybuilding purposes. It
seeks to avoid this consequence by invoking the Anabolic Steroids
Control Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 4851. Ante , at 27. But the
only effect of that legislation is to make anabolic steroids
controlled drugs under Schedule III of the CSA. If the only basis for control is (as the Court says) “addiction and
recreational abuse,” dispensation of these drugs for bodybuilding
could not be proscribed.

															   Although, as I have described, the Court’s
opinion no more defers to state law than does the Directive, the
Court relies on two provisions for the conclusion that “[t]he
structure and operation of the CSA presume and rely upon a
functioning medical profession regulated under the States’ police
powers,” ante , at 23—namely the registration provisions of
§823(f) and the nonpre-emption provision of §903. Reliance on the
former is particularly unfortunate, because the Court’s own
analysis recounts how Congress amended §823(f) in 1984 in order to liberate the Attorney General’s power over registration
from the control of state regulators. See ante , at 14; 21
U. S. C. §823(f); see also Brief for Petitioners 34–35. And
the nonpre-emption clause is embarrassingly inapplicable, since it
merely disclaims field pre-emption, and affirmatively prescribes federal pre-emption whenever state law creates
a conflict.[ Footnote 5 ] In any
event, the Directive does not purport to pre-empt state law in any
way, not even by conflict pre-emption—unless the Court is under the
misimpression that some States require assisted suicide.
The Directive merely interprets the CSA to prohibit, like countless
other federal criminal provisions, conduct that happens not to be
forbidden under state law (or at least the law of the State of
Oregon).

															   With regard to the CSA’s registration
provisions, 21 U. S. C. §§823(f), 824(a), the Court argues
that the statute cannot fairly be read to “ ‘hide elephants in
mouseholes’ ” by delegating to the Attorney General the power
to determine the legitimacy of medical practices in “ ‘vague
terms or ancillary provisions.’ ” Ante , at 20
(quoting Whitman v. American Trucking Assns.,
Inc. , 531 U. S.
457 , 468 (2001)). This case bears not the remotest resemblance
to Whitman, which held that “Congress … does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague
terms or ancillary provisions.” Ibid. (emphasis added).
The Attorney General’s power to issue regulations against
questionable uses of controlled substances in no way alters “the
fundamental details” of the CSA. I am aware of only four areas in
which the Department of Justice has exercised that power to
regulate uses of controlled substances unrelated to
“addiction and recreational abuse” as the Court apparently
understands that phrase: assisted suicide, aggressive pain
management therapy, anabolic-steroid use, and cosmetic weight-loss
therapy. See, e.g. , In re Harline , 65 Fed. Reg.
5665, 5667 (2000) (weight loss); In re Tecca , 62 Fed.
Reg. 12842, 12846 (1997) (anabolic steroids); In re
Roth , 60 Fed. Reg. 62262, 62263, 62267 (1995) (pain
management). There is no indication that enforcement in these areas
interferes with the prosecution of “drug abuse” as the Court
understands it. Unlike in Whitman , the Attorney General’s additional power to address other forms of drug “abuse”
does absolutely nothing to undermine the central features
of this regulatory scheme. Of course it was critical to our
analysis in Whitman that the language of the provision did
not bear the meaning that respondents sought to give it. See 531 U.
S., at 465. Here, for the reasons stated above, the provision is
most naturally interpreted to incorporate a uniform federal
standard for legitimacy of medical practice.[ Footnote 6 ]

															   Finally, respondents argue that the Attorney
General must defer to state-law judgments about what constitutes
legitimate medicine, on the ground that Congress must speak clearly
to impose such a uniform federal standard upon the States. But no
line of our clear-statement cases is applicable here. The canon of
avoidance does not apply, since the Directive does not push the
outer limits of Congress’s commerce power, compare Solid Waste
Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of
Engineers , 531
U. S. 159 , 172 (2001) (regulation of isolated ponds), with United States v. Sullivan , 332 U. S. 689 , 698
(1948) (regulation of labeling of drugs shipped in interstate
commerce), or impinge on a core aspect of state sovereignty, cf. Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon , 473 U. S. 234 , 242
(1985) (sovereign immunity); Gregory v. Ashcroft , 501 U. S. 452 ,
460 (1991) (qualifications of state government officials). The
clear-statement rule based on the presumption against pre-emption
does not apply because the Directive does not pre-empt any state
law, cf. id. , at 456–457; Rush Prudential HMO,
Inc. v. Moran , 536 U. S. 355 , 359
(2002). And finally, no clear statement is required on the ground
that the Directive intrudes upon an area traditionally reserved
exclusively to the States, cf. BFP v. Resolution Trust
Corporation , 511 U. S. 531 , 544
(1994) (state regulation of titles to real property), because the
Federal Government has pervasively regulated the dispensation of
drugs for over 100 years. See generally Brief for Pro-Life Legal
Defense Fund et al. as Amici Curiae 3–15. It would be
a novel and massive expansion of the clear-statement rule to apply
it in a commerce case not involving pre-emption or
constitutional avoidance , merely because Congress has chosen
to prohibit conduct that a State has made a contrary policy
judgment to permit. See Sullivan , supra , at
693.

															III

															   Even if the Regulation did not
exist and “prescription” in §829 could not be interpreted to
require a “legitimate medical purpose,” the Directive’s conclusion
that “prescribing, dispensing, or administering federally
controlled substances … by a physician … may ‘render his
registration … inconsistent with the public interest’ and therefore
subject to possible suspension or revocation under 21 U. S. C.
[§]824(a)(4),” 66 Fed. Reg. 56608, would nevertheless be
unassailable in this Court.

															   Sections 823(f) and 824(a)
explicitly grant the Attorney General the authority to register and
deregister physicians, and his discretion in exercising that
authority is spelled out in very broad terms. He may refuse to
register or deregister if he determines that registration is
“inconsistent with the public interest,” 21 U. S. C. §823(f),
after considering five factors, the fifth of which is “[s]uch other
conduct which may threaten the public health and safety,”
§823(f)(5). See also In re Arora , 60 Fed. Reg. 4447, 4448
(1995) (“It is well established that these factors are to be
considered in the disjunctive, i.e., the Deputy Administrator may
properly rely on any one or a combination of factors, and give each
factor the weight he deems appropriate”). As the Court points out,
these broad standards were enacted in the 1984 amendments for the
specific purpose of freeing the Attorney General’s
discretion over registration from the decisions of state
authorities. See ante , at 13.

															   The fact that assisted-suicide prescriptions
are issued in violation of §829 is of course sufficient to support
the Directive’s conclusion that issuing them may be cause for
deregistration: such prescriptions would violate the fourth factor
of §823(f), namely “[c]ompliance with applicable … Federal … laws
relating to controlled substances,” 21 U. S. C. §823(f)(4).
But the Attorney General did not rely solely on subsection (f)(4)
in reaching his conclusion that registration would be “inconsistent
with the public interest”; nothing in the text of the Directive
indicates that. Subsection (f)(5) (“[s]uch other conduct which may
threaten the public health and safety”) provides an independent,
alternative basis for the Directive’s conclusion regarding
deregistration—provided that the Attorney General has authority to
interpret “public interest” and “public health and safety” in
§823(f) to exclude assisted suicide.

															   Three considerations make it perfectly clear
that the statute confers authority to interpret these phrases upon
the Attorney General. First, the Attorney General is solely and
explicitly charged with administering the registration and
deregistration provisions. See §§823(f), 824(a). By making the
criteria for such registration and deregistration such obviously
ambiguous factors as “public interest” and “public health and
safety,” Congress implicitly (but clearly) gave the Attorney
General authority to interpret those criteria— whether or
not there is any explicit delegation provision in the statute.
“Sometimes the legislative delegation to an agency on a particular
question is implicit rather than explicit. In such a case, a court
may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision
for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an
agency.” Chevron , 467 U. S., at 844. The Court’s exclusive
focus on the explicit delegation provisions is, at best, a
fossil of our pre- Chevron era; at least since Chevron , we have not conditioned our deferral to agency
interpretations upon the existence of explicit delegation
provisions. United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218 , 229
(2001), left this principle of implicit delegation intact.

															   Second, even if explicit delegation were
required, Congress provided it in §821, which authorizes the
Attorney General to “promulgate rules and regulations … relating to
the registration and control of the manufacture,
distribution, and dispensing of controlled
substances … .” (Emphasis added.) Because “dispensing”
refers to the delivery of a controlled substance “pursuant to the
lawful order of, a practitioner,” 21 U. S. C. §802(10), the
deregistration of such practitioners for writing impermissible
orders “relat[es] to the registration … of the … dispensing” of
controlled substances, 21 U. S. C. A. §821 (Supp.
2005).

															   Third, §821 also gives the Attorney General
authority to promulgate rules and regulations “relating to the …
control of the … dispensing of controlled substances.” As discussed
earlier, it is plain that the ordinary meaning of
“control” must apply to §821, so that the plain import of the
provision is to grant the Attorney General rulemaking authority
over all the provisions of part C of the CSA, 21 U.
S. C. A. §§821–830 (main ed. and Supp. 2005). Registering
and deregistering the practitioners who issue the prescriptions
necessary for lawful dispensation of controlled substances plainly
“relat[es] to the … control of the … dispensing of controlled
substances.” §821 (Supp. 2005).

															   The Attorney General is thus authorized to
promulgate regulations interpreting §§823(f) and 824(a), both by
implicit delegation in §823(f) and by two grounds of explicit
delegation in §821. The Court nevertheless holds that this triply
unambiguous delegation cannot be given full effect because “the
design of the statute,” ante , at 18, evinces the intent to
grant the Secretary of Health and Human Services exclusive
authority over scientific and medical determinations. This
proposition is not remotely plausible. The Court cites as authority
for the Secretary’s exclusive authority two specific areas in which
his medical determinations are said to be binding on the Attorney
General—with regard to the “scientific and medical evaluation” of a
drug’s effects that precedes its scheduling, §811(b), and with
regard to “the appropriate methods of professional practice in the
medical treatment of the narcotic addiction of various classes of
narcotic addicts,” 42 U. S. C. §290bb–2a; see also 21 U.
S. C. §823(g) (2000 ed. and Supp. II). See ante , at
17–19. Far from establishing a general principle of Secretary
supremacy with regard to all scientific and medical determinations,
the fact that Congress granted the Secretary specifically defined
authority in the areas of scheduling and addiction treatment, without otherwise mentioning him in the registration
provisions, suggests, to the contrary, that Congress envisioned no role for the Secretary in that area—where, as we have
said, interpretive authority was both implicitly and explicitly
conferred upon the Attorney General.

															   Even if we could rewrite statutes to accord
with sensible “design,” it is far from a certainty that the
Secretary, rather than the Attorney General, ought to control the
registration of physicians. Though registration decisions sometimes
require judgments about the legitimacy of medical practices, the
Department of Justice has seemingly had no difficulty making them.
See In re Harline , 65 Fed. Reg. 5665; In re
Tecca, 62 Fed. Reg. 12842; In re Roth , 60 Fed.
Reg. 62262. But unlike decisions about whether a substance should
be scheduled or whether a narcotics addiction treatment is
legitimate, registration decisions are not exclusively, or even
primarily, concerned with “medical [and] scientific” factors. See
21 U. S. C. §823(f). Rather, the decision to register, or to
bring an action to deregister, an individual physician implicates all the policy goals and competing enforcement
priorities that attend any exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It
is entirely reasonable to think (as Congress evidently did) that it
would be easier for the Attorney General occasionally to make
judgments about the legitimacy of medical practices than it would
be for the Secretary to get into the business of law enforcement.
It is, in other words, perfectly consistent with an intelligent
“design of the statute” to give the Nation’s chief law enforcement
official, not its chief health official, broad discretion over the
substantive standards that govern registration and deregistration.
That is especially true where the contested “scientific
and medical” judgment at issue has to do with the legitimacy of
physician-assisted suicide, which ultimately rests, not on
“science” or “medicine,” but on a naked value judgment. It no more
depends upon a “quintessentially medical judgmen[t],” ante , at 20, than does the legitimacy of polygamy or
eugenic infanticide. And it requires no particular medical training to undertake the objective inquiry into how the continuing
traditions of Western medicine have consistently treated this
subject. See OLC Memo, App. to Pet. for Cert. 113a–130a. The
Secretary’s supposedly superior “medical expertise” to make
“medical judgments,” ante , at 19–20, is strikingly
irrelevant to the case at hand.

															   The Court also reasons that, even if the CSA
grants the Attorney General authority to interpret §823(f), the
Directive does not purport to exercise that authority, because it
“does not undertake the five-factor analysis” of §823(f) and does
not “on its face purport to be an application of the
registration provision in §823(f).” Ante , at 14 (emphasis
added). This reasoning is sophistic. It would be improper—indeed, impossible —for the Attorney General to “undertake the
five-factor analysis” of §823(f) and to “appl[y] the registration
provision” outside the context of an actual enforcement proceeding.
But of course the Attorney General may issue regulations to clarify
his interpretation of the five factors, and to signal how he will
apply them in future enforcement proceedings. That is what the
Directive plainly purports to do by citing §824(a)(4), and that is
why the Directive’s conclusion on deregistration is couched in
conditional terms: “Such conduct by a physician … may ‘render his registration … inconsistent with the public interest’
and therefore subject to possible suspension or revocation
under 21 U. S. C. [§]824(a)(4).” 66 Fed. Reg. 56608 (emphasis
added).

															   It follows from what we have said that the
Attorney General’s authoritative interpretations of “public
interest” and “public health and safety” in §823(f) are subject to Chevron deference. As noted earlier, the Court does not
contest that the absence of notice-and-comment procedures for the
Directive renders Chevron inapplicable. And there is no
serious argument that “Congress has directly spoken to the precise
question at issue,” or that the Directive’s interpretations of
“public health and safety” and “inconsistent with the public
interest” are not “permissible.” Chevron , 467 U. S., at
842–843. On the latter point, in fact, the condemnation of assisted
suicide by 50 American jurisdictions supports the Attorney
General’s view. The Attorney General may therefore weigh a
physician’s participation in assisted suicide as a factor
counseling against his registration, or in favor of deregistration,
under §823(f).

															   In concluding to the contrary, the Court
merely presents the conclusory assertion that “it is doubtful the
Attorney General could cite the ‘public interest’ or ‘public
health’ to deregister a physician simply because he deemed a
controversial practice permitted by state law to have an
illegitimate medical purpose.” Ante , at 17. But why on
earth not?—especially when he has interpreted the relevant
statutory factors in advance to give fair warning that such a
practice is “inconsistent with the public interest.” The Attorney
General’s discretion to determine the public interest in this area
is admittedly broad—but certainly no broader than other
congressionally conferred Executive powers that we have upheld in
the past. See, e.g. , National Broadcasting Co. v. United States , 319 U. S. 190 , 216–217
(1943) (“public interest”); New York Central Securities
Corp. v. United States , 287 U. S. 12 , 24–25
(1932) (same); see also Mistretta v. United
States , 488 U.
S. 361 , 415–416 (1989) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

															*  *  *

															   In sum, the Directive’s first
conclusion—namely that physician-assisted suicide is not a
“legitimate medical purpose”—is supported both by the deference we
owe to the agency’s interpretation of its own regulations and by
the deference we owe to its interpretation of the statute. The
other two conclusions—(2) that prescribing controlled drugs to
assist suicide violates the CSA, and (3) that such conduct is also
“inconsistent with the public interest”—are inevitable consequences
of that first conclusion. Moreover, the third conclusion, standing
alone, is one that the Attorney General is authorized to make.

															   The Court’s decision today is
perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is
none of the Federal Government’s business. It is easy to sympathize
with that position. The prohibition or deterrence of assisted
suicide is certainly not among the enumerated powers conferred on
the United States by the Constitution, and it is within the realm
of public morality (bonos mores) traditionally addressed
by the so-called police power of the States. But then, neither is
prohibiting the recreational use of drugs or discouraging drug
addiction among the enumerated powers. From an early time in our
national history, the Federal Government has used its enumerated
powers, such as its power to regulate interstate commerce, for the
purpose of protecting public morality—for example, by banning the
interstate shipment of lottery tickets, or the interstate transport
of women for immoral purposes. See Hoke v. United
States , 227 U.
S. 308 , 321–323 (1913); Lottery Case , 188 U. S. 321 , 356
(1903). Unless we are to repudiate a long and well-established
principle of our jurisprudence, using the federal commerce power to
prevent assisted suicide is unquestionably permissible. The
question before us is not whether Congress can do this, or
even whether Congress should do this; but simply whether
Congress has done this in the CSA. I think there is no
doubt that it has. If the term “ legitimate medical
purpose” has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of
drugs to produce death.

															   For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent
from the judgment of the Court. Footnote 1 To be sure, this acknowledgment did not go
far enough, because it overlooked the significance of the word
“legitimate,” which is most naturally understood to create an
objective, federal standard for appropriate medical uses.
See Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield , 490 U. S. 30 , 43 (1989) (“We start …
with the general assumption that in the absence of a plain
indication to the contrary, … Congress when it enacts a statute is
not making the application of the federal act dependent on state
law” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Footnote 2 The only place outside 21 U. S. C. §801
in which the statute uses the phrase “legitimate medical purpose”
is in defining the phrase “valid prescription” for purposes of the
reporting requirements that apply to mail orders of regulated
substances. See §830(b)(3)(A)(ii). The Regulation did not “parrot”
this statutory section, because the Regulation was adopted in 1971
and the statutory language was added in 2000. See Brief for
Petitioners 17 (citing the Children’s Health Act of 2000, §3652,
114 Stat. 1239, 21 U. S. C. §830(b)(3)). But even if the
statutory language had predated the Regulation, there would be no
“parroting” of that phrase. In using the word “prescription” without definition in the much more critical §829,
Congress left the task of resolving any ambiguity in that word,
used in that context, to the relevant Executive officer. That the
officer did so by deeming relevant a technically inapplicable
statutory definition contained elsewhere in the statute does not
make him a parrot. He has given to the statutory text a meaning it
did not explicitly—and perhaps even not necessarily—contain. Footnote 3 The Court concludes that “[e]ven if ‘control’
in §821 were understood to signify something other than its
statutory definition, it would not support the Interpretive Rule.” Ante , at 13. That conclusion rests upon a
misidentification of the text that the Attorney General, pursuant
to his “control” authority, is interpreting. No one argues that the
word “control” in §821 gives the Attorney General “authority to
define diversion based on his view of legitimate medical practice,” ibid . Rather, that word authorizes the Attorney General to
interpret (among other things) the “prescription” requirement of
§829. The question then becomes whether the phrase “ legitimate
medical purpose ” (which all agree is included in
“prescription”) is at least open to the interpretation
announced in the Directive. See Chevron U. S. A.
Inc. , v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. , 467 U. S. 837 , 843 (1984). And of
course it is—as the Court effectively concedes two pages earlier:
“All would agree, we should think, that the statutory phrase
‘legitimate medical purpose’ is a generality, susceptible to more
precise definition and open to varying constructions, and thus
ambiguous in the relevant sense.” Ante , at 11 (citing Chevron ). Footnote 4 This phrase appears only in the Regulation
and not in the relevant section of the statute. But as pointed out
earlier, the Court does not contest that this is the most
reasonable interpretation of the section—regarding it, indeed, as a
mere “parroting” of the statute. Footnote 5 Title 21 U. S. C. §903 reads, in
relevant part, as follows: “No provision of this subchapter shall
be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to
occupy the field in which that provision operates, including
criminal penalties, to the exclusion of any State law on the same
subject matter … unless there is a positive
conflict … .” Footnote 6 The other case cited by the Court, FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. , 529 U. S. 120 (2000), is even more obviously inapt. There we relied on the first
step of the Chevron analysis to determine that Congress
had spoken to the precise issue in question, impliedly repealing
the grant of jurisdiction on which the FDA relied. 529 U. S., at
160–161. Here, Congress has not expressly or impliedly authorized
the practice of assisted suicide, or indeed “spoken directly” to
the subject in any way beyond the text of the CSA. THOMAS, J., DISSENTING GONZALES V. OREGON 546 U. S. ____ (2006) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 04-623 ALBERTO R. GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al.,
PETITIONERS v. OREGON et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the ninth circuit

															[January 17, 2006]

															   Justice Thomas, dissenting.

															   When Angel Raich and Diane Monson
challenged the application of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA),
21 U. S. C. §801 et seq. , to their purely intrastate
possession of marijuana for medical use as authorized under
California law, a majority of this Court (a mere seven months ago)
determined that the CSA effectively invalidated California’s law
because “the CSA is a comprehensive regulatory regime specifically
designed to regulate which controlled substances can be utilized
for medicinal purposes, and in what manner .” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. ___, ___ (2005)
(slip op., at 24) (emphasis added). The majority employed
unambiguous language, concluding that the “manner” in which
controlled substances can be utilized “for medicinal purposes” is
one of the “core activities regulated by the CSA.” Id., at
___ (slip op., at 25). And, it described the CSA as “creating a
comprehensive framework for regulating the production,
distribution, and possession of … ‘controlled substances,’ ”
including those substances that “ ‘have a useful and
legitimate medical purpose,’ ” in order to “foster the
beneficial use of those medications” and “to prevent their misuse.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 21).

															   Today the majority beats a hasty retreat from
these conclusions. Confronted with a regulation that broadly
requires all prescriptions to be issued for a “legitimate medical
purpose,” 21 CFR §1306.04(a) (2005), a regulation recognized in Raich as part of the Federal Government’s “closed …
system” for regulating the “manner” in “which controlled substances
can be utilized for medicinal purposes,” 545 U. S., at ___, ___
(slip op., at 10, 24), the majority rejects the Attorney General’s
admittedly “at least reasonable,” ante, at 26,
determination that administering controlled substances to
facilitate a patient’s death is not a “ ‘legitimate medical
purpose.’ ” The majority does so based on its conclusion that
the CSA is only concerned with the regulation of “medical practice
insofar as it bars doctors from using their prescription-writing
powers as a means to engage in illicit drug dealing and trafficking
as conventionally understood.” Ante , at 23. In other
words, in stark contrast to Raich’ s broad conclusions
about the scope of the CSA as it pertains to the medicinal use of
controlled substances, today this Court concludes that the CSA is
merely concerned with fighting “ ‘drug abuse’ ” and only
insofar as that abuse leads to “addiction or abnormal effects on
the nervous system.”[ Footnote
1 ] Ante, at 26.

															   The majority’s newfound understanding of the
CSA as a statute of limited reach is all the more puzzling because
it rests upon constitutional principles that the majority of the
Court rejected in Raich . Notwithstanding the States’
“ ‘traditional police powers to define the criminal law and to
protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,’ ”
545 U. S., at ___, n. 38 (slip op., at 27, n. 38), the Raich majority concluded that the CSA applied to the
intrastate possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes
authorized by California law because “Congress could have
rationally” concluded that such an application was necessary to the
regulation of the “larger interstate marijuana market.” Id. , at ___, ___ (slip op., at 28, 30). Here, by contrast,
the majority’s restrictive interpretation of the CSA is based in no
small part on “the structure and limitations of federalism, which
allow the States ‘ “great latitude under their police powers
to legislate as to the protection of the lives, limbs, health,
comfort, and quiet of all persons.” ’ ” Ante , at
23 (quoting Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470 , 475
(1996), in turn quoting Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 , 756
(1985)). According to the majority, these “background principles of
our federal system … belie the notion that Congress would use … an
obscure grant of authority to regulate areas traditionally
supervised by the States’ police power.” Ante, at 28.

															   Of course there is nothing “obscure” about the
CSA’s grant of authority to the Attorney General. Ante ,
p. ___ (Scalia, J., dissenting). And, the Attorney General’s
conclusion that the CSA prohibits the States from authorizing
physician assisted suicide is admittedly “at least reasonable,” ante , at 26 (opinion of the Court), and is therefore
entitled to deference. Ante, at 6–7 (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). While the scope of the CSA and the Attorney General’s
power thereunder are sweeping, and perhaps troubling, such
expansive federal legislation and broad grants of authority to
administrative agencies are merely the inevitable and inexorable
consequence of this Court’s Commerce Clause and
separation-of-powers jurisprudence. See, e.g. , Raich , supra; Whitman v. American
Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001).

															   I agree with limiting the applications of the
CSA in a manner consistent with the principles of federalism and
our constitutional structure. Raich , supra, at
___ (Thomas, J., dissenting); cf. Whitman, supra , at
486–487 (Thomas, J., concurring) (noting constitutional concerns
with broad delegations of authority to administrative agencies).
But that is now water over the dam. The relevance of such
considerations was at its zenith in Raich , when we
considered whether the CSA could be applied to the intrastate
possession of a controlled substance consistent with the limited
federal powers enumerated by the Constitution. Such considerations
have little, if any, relevance where, as here, we are merely
presented with a question of statutory interpretation, and not the
extent of constitutionally permissible federal power. This is
particularly true where, as here, we are interpreting broad,
straightforward language within a statutory framework that a
majority of this Court has concluded is so comprehensive that it
necessarily nullifies the States’ “ ‘traditional … powers … to
protect the health, safety, and welfare of their
citizens.’ ”[ Footnote 2 ] Raich , supra, at ___, n. 38 (slip op., at 27, n.
38). The Court’s reliance upon the constitutional principles that
it rejected in Raich —albeit under the guise of statutory
interpretation—is perplexing to say the least. Accordingly, I
respectfully dissent. Footnote 1 The majority does not expressly address
whether the ingestion of a quantity of drugs that is sufficient to
cause death has an “abnormal effec[t] on the nervous system,” ante , at 25, though it implicitly rejects such a
conclusion. Footnote 2 Notably, respondents have not seriously
pressed a constitutional claim here, conceding at oral argument
that their “point is not necessarily that [the CSA] would be
unconstitutional.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 44. In any event, to the extent
respondents do present a constitutional claim, they do so solely
within the framework of Raich . Framed in this manner, the
claim must fail. The respondents in Raich were “local
growers and users of state-authorized, medical marijuana,” who
stood “outside the interstate drug market” and possessed
“ ‘medicinal marijuana … not intended for … the stream of
commerce.’ ” 545 U. S., at ___, ___, (slip op., at 5, 16)
(Thomas, J., dissenting). Here, by contrast, the
respondent-physicians are active participants in the interstate
controlled substances market, and the drugs they prescribe for
assisting suicide have likely traveled in interstate commerce. If
the respondents in Raich could not sustain a
constitutional claim, then a fortiori respondents here
cannot sustain one. Respondents’ acceptance of Raich forecloses their constitutional challenge.