Almost nothing is "purely intra-state" commerce, even growing weed in your own backyard for your own personal use (see the--I think absurd--decision in Gonzalez

Almost nothing is "purely intra-state" commerce, even growing weed in your own backyard for your own personal use (see the--I think absurd--decision in Gonzalez v. Raich). I agree with you that this is unfortunate. You're a lawyer and you know all this, but for the rest of the HN crowd: an extremely broad definition of "interstate commerce" has applied since the New Deal era when the Supreme Court folded to immense pressure from the FDR administration and stopped striking down his New Deal programs. This generally favors the left, by allowing more regulation by the federal government. But it can work the other way; like here, for example, by allowing the Federal Arbitration Act to apply very broadly.