Posted on 11/01/2001 12:22:51 PM PST by LiveFree2000
By Greg Winter
Armed with a favourable ruling from the Supreme Court, the Bush Administration has begun a crackdown on the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes.
In recent weeks, agents in California have uprooted a marijuana garden run by patients; seized files of a doctor and lawyer who recommended the drug for sick clients; and raided one of the state's largest cannabis clubs, in West Hollywood, where more than 900 people suffering from ailments such as cancer and AIDS regularly bought the drug.
The enforcement, three years after the last federal raid on a "medical marijuana" club in Oakland, California, represents the Justice Department's renewed attempt to impose federal drug laws in states that have legalised marijuana use for people who are sick or dying.
Citing a unanimous Supreme Court decision last May, which in effect rendered the distribution of marijuana through large co-operatives illegal, the Justice Department said more actions would probably follow, despite its focus on fighting terrorism.
The raids have enraged local officials, who not only support medical marijuana clubs, but sometimes help to set them up. The city of West Hollywood, for example, co-signed the mortgage for the Cannabis Resource Centre that was raided last week, and helped to get the club listed as a member of the local chamber of commerce.
"This was a serious effort to provide relief for people who were ill," said Steve Martin, a councillor in West Hollywood.
"The Bush Administration is forcing sick people to become criminals because they will have to go out and buy illicit drugs to survive."
Some are equally concerned about the seizure of medical records and legal files from a doctor and her husband, a lawyer, who run a clinic, of sorts, in Cool, north-east of Sacramento. The team, federal agents say, coached their patients on how to evade arrest and supplied them with marijuana grown in their home and a greenhouse.
Medical marijuana advocates say they are looking at ways of bringing states directly into the business of distributing the drug, something the Supreme Court ruling did not specifically prohibit.
The New York Times
Would you want your surgeon to be operating on you while high on pot?
Glad to see our nascent police state focus on something that's REALLY important, I was beginning to worry the war on terrorism might distract them.
I have not read the Supreme Court decision, referred to; but that is not the question. There are two different questions, involved: Can they do this, and should they do this. My comment is directed towards the latter, even though I might dispute the Court's reasoning on the former--if, and when, I encounter it. (Note, this does not involve a drug brought into the United States or even the States involved, from any other. Internal Health concerns have always come under the States' Police powers.)
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
You will have to do better than that worn out lame come back. LOL
This beggs the question: Why would a surgeon be high on anything? Why are you asking why if we would want a drunk surgeon? Or how about one that walked down the hall and picked up some pharmaceudical grade cocain?
You have a mental disconect. Doctors saying "pot helps this or that" does not equate the same doctor using it while operating. Do doctors generally just use drugs the prescribe whenever they want, because they can prescribe it?
Use your head, buddy - for once in your life - oh, and stop speading hysteria.
I would definitely prefer it to being subjected to a surgeon drunk on alcohol.
Genesis 1:11 Genesis 1 Genesis 1:10-12 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Genesis 1:12 Genesis 1 Genesis 1:11-13 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:29 Genesis 1 Genesis 1:28-30 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
Oh you mean old, lame and worn out just like the Bible? Somethings are good ideas and some are bad. The tried and true applied then and it still applies now.
The horror, the horror.....
I hope the sheeple wake up soon and see what a farse all of our governments "War on such-and-such" are. We supposedly have a "War on Terrorism" and are suspecting that we may be attacked again(which is odd to me, since they knew about the first one apparently and did nothing) but they are cracking down on people smoking pot. Courts rule this and that by applying mental contortions to clearly written laws. Courts give powers to this agency and that one on a whim. The DEA has no interest in the truth about "illegal drugs" since their jobs depend on "drugs" being illegal. When the elite are arrested for drugs, nothing happens. Drug laws apply to us peasants, no one else. Klinton gets to sit in the Whitehouse doing coke with hookers and smoking pot, with no punishment. GW did drugs, did not get into trouble, but thinks everyone else should.
The government better be glad that pot smokers are generally peaceful people.
Please name some of these 'compounds' that you refer to and describe how they are less harmful than marijuana.
You prescribe to the varied degree of stupidity view. Different levels of incompetence are OK? How about it's all a bad idea.
Legitimate arguement... NOT
With almost 7000 dead on 9/11, the continuing anthrax scares, and the entire country on pins and needles waiting for the next terrorist attack, these m-f-ing drug pigs are still jailing pot smokers trying to alleviate symptoms of debilitating diseases.
What the hell is wrong with these people? BTW, if this story is to be believed, GWB has just broken a campaign promise (I recall that he claimed that he would treat medical MJ as a state issue).
Sad times, indeed.
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