Posted on 10/23/2014 10:51:04 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
The U.S. government claims marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug with no medical benefits. But that claim will be up for debate Monday in California when a federal judge is scheduled to hear testimony from doctors that conclude the opposite.
Doctors Carl Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, retired physician Phillip Denny, and Greg Carter, Medical Director of St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane, Washington will testify Monday that marijuana — real name, “cannabis” — is not the demon drug the federal government makes it out to be. Accepted science does not justify the listing of cannabis as a dangerous “Schedule I” substance, many say.
“[I]t is my considered opinion that including marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act is counter to all the scientific evidence in a society that uses and values empirical evidence,” Dr. Hart declared. “After two decades of intense scientific inquiry in this area, it has become apparent the current scheduling of cannabis has no footing in the realities of science and neurobiology.” [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.sfgate.com ...
If you rely on Uncle Caesar to tell you what’s wise, it’s only an election away from going 180 degrees opposite.
Doctors decide what is Constitutional?
Sure, why not? Courts and politicians decide what's medicinal and scientific.
Misleading headline. The article states that doctors are going to testify that cannabis does not belong in the Schedule I controlled substance category. There doesn’t appear to be any challenge to the constitutionality of the Feds regulating drugs.
It's a sensationalistic and inaccurate headline
Well, has any president invoked the war powers act, gone to Congress, etc, to declare that a State of War exists against Marijuana?
Just taking it literally!
What about the odor of medical marijuana? That odor should be deemed a violation of the Clean Air Act.
Aaah, what do doctors know about accepted medical use? I leave all my medical decisions to politicians and bureaucrats.
Well, they *are* right that the *war* on marijuana is unconstitutional, at least the way it’s being conducted (violating 2nd, 4th, 5th amendment rights).
Yup.
President Richard Nixon placed cannabis in Schedule 1 in 1970, overruling the recommendations of his own National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, which found “little proven danger of physical or psychological harm from the experimental or intermittent use of the natural preparations of cannabis.”
It's for the children.
Even if marijuana was the demon drug that the feds claim it is, with the exception of interstate commerce, the Constitution doesn’t give the feds a voice on marijuana issues where intrastate commerce is concerned.
More specifically regardless what FDR’s activist justices wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers when it wrongly decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress’s favor in 1942, Constitution-respecting justices had previously clarified that the feds have no power to regulate intrastate commerce as evidenced by the following excerpt.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
And since marijuana is not just an intrastate commerce issue but also an agricultural issue, note that the Supreme Court later clarified that the states have never delegated to Congress, expressly via Constitution, the specific power to regulate agricultural production.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Again, regardless what FDR’s thug justices wanted everybody to believe concerning the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce which includes agricultural production and therefore marijuana production.
Indeed. I don’t know if it’s true but I read that those that wrote the first laws against marijuana went with the expensive tax stamp (which one couldn’t buy) as opposed to simply making it illegal for constitutional reasons and they were even concerned that even the tax would be found unconstitutional.
If there was a war, there would be a lot of dead people and flattened cities. That hasn't happened yet.
The "War on" phrasing follows the earlier "War on Poverty."
Do you favor a "real" war on marijuana as you describe it?
given current brain scans of long term users and the fact that we know in large enough recreational uses it does in fact cause hallucinations, these doctors have no credibility.
Utterly irrelevant to whether it meets the Schedule I criterion of having "no accepted medical use."
In this case they’re right. The federal government has absolutely no authority under Article 2, Section 8 of the Constitution to regulate what people put into their own bodies.
None.
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