We will be covering the doctrine of preemption in a few weeks, the rule (derived from the Supremacy Clause of Article VI) that, when federal and state law come into conflict, federal law trumps. The Supreme Court has two very big preemption cases on its docket for the coming Term,
Altria v.
Good (involving the marketing of cigarettes as "light" or "low tar") and
Wyeth v.
Levine (concerning the labeling of prescription medications approved by the FDA). In Friday's edition, the
New York Times contains a lengthy story on
Wyeth, which you can find
here.