Posted on 06/06/2005 8:58:28 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.
The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug's use to treat various illnesses.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.
The closely watched case was an appeal by the Bush administration in a case involving two seriously ill California women who use marijuana. The court said the prosecution of pot users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional.
"I'm going to have to be prepared to be arrested," said Diane Monson, one of the women involved in the case.
In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state's economic activity so long as it involves "interstate commerce" that crosses state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown, distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.
"Our national medical system relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion. To date, science and research have not determined that smoking marijuana is safe or effective," John Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy, said Monday.
Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, "but perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these (California women) may one day be heard in the halls of Congress."
California's medical marijuana law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state have laws similar to California.
In those states, doctors generally can give written or oral recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.
"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens," said O'Connor, who was joined in her dissent by two other states' rights advocates: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas.
The legal question presented a dilemma for the court's conservatives, who have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years. They earlier invalidated federal laws dealing with gun possession near schools and violence against women on the grounds the activity was too local to justify federal intrusion.
O'Connor said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she were a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use."
Alan Hopper, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said that local and state officers handle 99 percent of marijuana prosecutions and must still follow any state laws that protect patients. "This is probably not going to change a lot for individual medical marijuana patients," he said.
The case concerned two Californians, Monson and Angel Raich. The two had sued then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of arrest, home raids or other intrusion by federal authorities.
Raich, an Oakland woman suffering from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain, smokes marijuana every few hours. She said she was partly paralyzed until she started smoking pot. Monson, an accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.
In the court's main decision, Stevens raised concerns about abuse of marijuana laws. "Our cases have taught us that there are some unscrupulous physicians who overprescribe when it is sufficiently profitable to do so," he said.
The case is Gonzales v. Raich, 03-1454.
Well, excuse me, but I guess USA TODAY must be part of your "vast conspiracy" of misinformation , because that's where I read that-also heard it mentioned on a LIBERAL talk show(mainstream media in both cases). So sue me. I'm not trying to give out ANY misinformation on any subject, so that's why I said "from everything I've heard/read" rather than quote it as gospel. And , pray tell me...just WHERE are they throwing kids in prison for smoking weed in 2005? Please name the states. And, no, I still don't care. Sorry.
In this case, complaicency and stupidity suffice.
, because that's where I read that-also heard it mentioned on a LIBERAL talk show(mainstream media in both cases).
Like there's some huge gap between liberals and conservatives on this subject. All either of them ever do is read squibs out of Reuters that some government agency prepares.
Major news media of any political stripe is a good source of info-tainment and a good source of news involving blood and gore, however, when it comes to serious, sourced journalism that requires a reporter and a reader to dig and think, you will have to look elsewhere.
So sue me. I'm not trying to give out ANY misinformation on any subject, so that's why I said "from everything I've heard/read" rather than quote it as gospel.
That is a tool's defense for being a tool. Whatever you were "trying" to do, you were quite clearly passing on propaganda of no factual value, but obvious intent. I feel quite comfortable in objecting to this, and setting the record straight, regardless of this poor-innocent-me passion play.
And , pray tell me...just WHERE are they throwing kids in prison for smoking weed in 2005? Please name the states. And, no, I still don't care. Sorry.
None. There is no law against smoking weed. There is no law against being high. However, if you want to ask about possession, the answer is, about all of them.
Under federal 3-strike laws, your third bust for pot possession, which is a felony, is a mandatory sentence. So is your first bust when you have enough pot on you to last a month. So is your first bust, if your friends keep guns in the house. See the yearly FBI prisons report.
You probably think there isn't anyone in jail for using weed because you don't live in a black ghetto, where every kid on the playground is used to being lined up and searched at whim, and it is comparatively easy to make busts stick because a spectacularly well-dressed lawyer and two concerned parents, and assorted relatives, and maybe a teacher and a preacher, won't be on your case the next morning.
All I can say to you is, if you don't like those 3-strike laws,or any other law/policy, you have to strive to get them changed. And thanks for saying that because I tell someone about something I heard on the news, I'm a tool that makes excuses for the manipulators. That's being a wee bit paranoid, don't you think? Fight to get the laws changed-write/call your rep-do something & get involved, if you feel it's unjust.
That is an absolutely retarded statement.
Sick older person can grow it and smoke it very cheaply, and take care of himself.
Or, in your scenario, sick older person goes to Dr. (after he waits two weeks/months to get an appointment), tells Doc he's not feeling so hot. Doc gives prescription for some crap a drug rep shoved down his throat, which has been tested by the FDA (which costs taxpayer money), and is probably far less effective than the real thing. Old man goes to massive chain pharmacy, hoping they fill the prescription correctly, pays his co-pay (or possibly the whole inflated cost, if he does not have insurance, which could mean that he could not afford it at all), which of course is only a fraction of what the insurance companies are charging for the drug, which pushes up premiums for everyone else so that the insurance company can cover "rising health care costs", and takes it home. Only to repeat the entire process again over and over.
Hmmmm. Self sufficiency, or dependency on the entire bloated, bureaucratic system that is our medical care?
Not to mention the fact that insurance and drug companies are the biggest problems we have as far as health care goes. Why the heck would any conservative think it is a good idea to get them involved in anything, let alone give them one more racket through which they can rape people? Sheesh.
I have no problem with 3-strike laws. I have a problem with unjust laws, unevenly enforced.
And thanks for saying that because I tell someone about something I heard on the news, I'm a tool that makes excuses for the manipulators. That's being a wee bit paranoid, don't you think?
I apologize if I hurt your feelings with excessive rhetoric, my basic point, however, is still accurate: there is no basis in medical science or common sense for the suggestion that Marinol is less of a high then marijuana--most people who have known both have the quite intensively the opposite opinion. Many have reported being so high on Marinol they were knocked flat on their backs--just as the FDA warnings suggest.
Fight to get the laws changed-write/call your rep-do something & get involved, if you feel it's unjust.
Due process was tried back in the 70's, and the DEA was directed to reclassify marijuana as a result of due process. Didn't happen, did it?
It is a total waste of time to try to legalize marijuana by due process--due to civil siezure laws, marijuana is an incredible federal law enforcement bonanza for which they do not have to go to congress and beg. That is why the DEA won't follow it's own rules and re-classify marijuana as their own judge-advocate told them to do, after an expensive and exhausive judicial review of the available science regarding marijuana. No government in history has ever allowed itself to turn off such a lucrative police scam--short of being dismantled. Consult the fate of the roman republic and see of you think the Praetorian guard could have been bridled by the senate, once they started the lucrative practice of electing emperors from within their own ranks.
OK-points taken, and sound ones. Merely tryin' to have intelligent discussion, man. Nothing more. I can honestly say, I don't profess to know what the answer is. And, you're right, the Goverment will never kill a cash cow. Sadly. But that's where we've went , and I saw all this crap starting years ago. I got pelted with tear gas & wooden bullets back in the 60's during protests, slowly turned more conservative over the years, but like to think I'm a freethinker. I really don't have much use for either party, as they're both obsessed with "creeping socialism", in my book. More, bigger covernment. The Repub party is about (now) where the Dem party was about 20-30 years ago. The Dems will be the Socialist party of tommorrow on their present course. Just my opinion. It's getting very scary.
This ruling prolly burned you up good huh? Friggin Evil Gubment. Haha...
All is well currently. Hope the same for you.
This ruling prolly burned you up good huh?
You bet it did. I would hope that you would concede that I at least have a decnt constitutional argument on my side, as Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingrham, and 98% of the FReeper population agree with me.
OK. If Congress is regulating the interstate commerce of strawberries, and you (and millions of others) are growing your own, you're having a substantial effect on that regulated interstate commerce, aren't you?
Do you think the Founding Fathers intended that citizens be allowed to undermine and subvert Congressional regulatory efforts? If so, then why did they give Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce to begin with?
(Food, in general, is a bad example. There's some "sustenance" protection under the law to grow what you want. No, dope isn't sustenance.)
A constitutional amendment was desired, but it was not required. A federal statute would have sufficed.
Then why did they go to the trouble of amending the constitution?
"An amendment to the Constitution obviously appealed to temperance reformers more than a federal statute banning liquor. A simple congressional majority could adopt a statute but, with the shift of a relatively few votes, could likewise topple one. Drys feared that an ordinary law would be in constant danger of being overturned owing to pressure from liquor industry interests or the growing population of liquor-using immigrants. A constitutional amendment, on the other hand, though more difficult to achieve, would be impervious to change. Their reform would not only have been adopted, the Anti-Saloon League reasoned, but would be protected from future human weakness and backsliding."
Furthermore, the 21st amendment no only repealed the 18th (Section 1), but removed the power to regulate alcohol from the federal government and returned that power exclusively to the states (Section 2).
Then let them put their money where their big mouths are. Let them set up their own radio stations and TV stations in each state, broadcast at any frequency they want, at any power they want, and say whatever they want -- oh, as long as the signal stays in the state.
OK with you? You might get your wish and be able to see and hear these people 24/7 -- exclusively.
Apples, oranges, and all that.
Where do you get apples and oranges?
Decent...no...remotely plausible...yes...correct...no...
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