Posted on 05/13/2007 1:17:59 PM PDT by JTN
Oakland medical marijuana patient and activist Angel Raich dropped her lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, ending a five-year legal odyssey which had taken her all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I've lost all faith in the judicial system, I don't understand how somebody can lose their constitutional right to life in this country," she said Thursday. "It's been really, really hard for me these last few months, and I wasn't happy about having to give up the case.
"But I'm really having a hard time medically speaking right now -- my brain tumor has finally started causing damage and I have to start radiation treatment in a couple of weeks at Stanford," she explained, adding she's lost some sensation in the left side of her face, including problems with blinking, chewing and swallowing.
"This is far from over, it's just a new beginning," Raich insisted -- the battle now moves from courts to Congress. "I'm not going to give up."
She said she's talking with lawyers and lawmakers about drafting "a right-to-life, medical necessity sort of bill. ... It's basically going to protect the sickest of the sick, and it's going to be narrow because there are other bills already out there." She's also continuing her work with medical-marijuana advocacy groups, and she'll go to Washington, D.C., later this month on a lobbying trip.
Besides the brain tumor, Raich, a 41-year-old mother of two, suffers from scoliosis, wasting syndrome, fibromyalgia and a host of other ailments.
Raich and Diane Monson of Oroville plus two unnamed providers sued the government in October 2002 to prevent any interference with their medical marijuana use, but this case's seeds actually were sown in the Supreme Court's May 2001 decision on the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative's case.
The court in that earlier case had ruled there's no collective medical necessity exception to the federal ban, which defines marijuana as having no valid medical use. But it didn't rule on constitutional questions underlying the medical marijuana debate, so Raich, Monson and their lawyers tailor-made a case raising exactly those issues.
A federal judge in San Francisco rejected their arguments in March 2003, but a 9th Circuit appeal panel later reversed that ruling, finding the plaintiffs could prevail at trial on their claim that the Constitution's Commerce Clause lets Congress regulate only interstate commerce, and that Californians' medical marijuana use neither crosses state lines nor involves money changing hands.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case in November 2004 and in June 2005 ruled 6-3 to uphold the federal ban, finding that even marijuana grown in back yards for personal medical use can affect or contribute to the illegal interstate market for marijuana and so is within Congress' constitutional reach.
But the 9th Circuit panel and the Supreme Court at that point had dealt only with the Commerce Clause argument, not other constitutional issues. Monson dropped out, but Raich pressed on as the case returned to the 9th Circuit for those other arguments.
Though clearly sympathetic to Raich's medical plight, a three-judge 9th Circuit panel concluded in March that medical necessity doesn't shield medical-marijuana users from federal prosecution, and that medical marijuana use isn't a fundamental right protected by the Constitution's guarantee of due process of law.
Raich could've asked that the March decision be reviewed by a larger, 11-judge 9th Circuit panel; or that it be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court; or that it return to U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins of San Francisco for a few unresolved issues.
But Robert Raich, her ex-husband and one of her attorneys, said Thursday the legal avenues left to them "did not look fruitful. It's a sorry commentary that right now we simply cannot depend on the courts to uphold fundamental rights, even the right to life."
Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said Congress is where Raich is needed most, as the House this summer probably will take up -- for the fifth consecutive year -- a bill to forbid federal prosecution of patients in the 12 states with medical marijuana-laws.
Last year's vote on the bill by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, was 259-163 against the amendment. The measure received 161 votes in 2005; 148 in 2004 and 152 in 2003; it would need 218 to pass.
You are a joke.
>>>>why would you deny her some relief?
I would do no such thing. If I was her physician I would get her on a medication that has a proven track record of helping in double blind clinical trials, not some puffed up PR stunt by the dopers.
If marijuana brought her relief, would you deny her that form of relief?
It is a lousy pain killer, the user has no idea how much THC they are getting, there are dozens of better analgesics on the market,... and even if marijuana was so great, THC is legally and readily available as a cheap generic drug call Marinol.
This has never been anything but a poorly disguised “let’s legalize all drugs” far-left liberal campaign wrapped in a false “freedom” wrapper and some foolish Conservatives buy it.
The problem with depending on marijuana is that, like the coffee enemas, aroma therapy, laetrile and other quackery, Marijuana keeps the patient from using advanced drugs that work wonderfully to control pain and restore appetite.
P.S. let’s see who is paying for the Pro-marijuana campaign?
George Seros is the biggest contributor, the others are mostly rich Hollywood dopers, drug dealers and far-left California politicos.
They wouldn’t lie to us, would they?
Have you personally experienced the same thing as this person has?
What about those people that say it gives them relief? How can anyone else determine if they feel better from something, and why should someone else, have the right to say...no, this can’t possibly make you feel better, so we’ve determined you shouldn’t have it...Should their opinion about how they personally feel, just be discounted?
Finally, No. I don't smoke pot and haven't for 32 years.
Like Clarence Thomas and Wm. Rehnquist, who both voted in favor of Raich?
Let me ask you this. Where in the Constitution is the federal government delegated the power to override state law with respect to medical marijuana. Looking for YOUR personal opinion on the Constitution, not a court decision.
I believe some FReeper wrote that one. Wish I’d saved the credits. Nonetheless, it jived with my research and was written better than I could do it.
That’s quite a thread, interesting read.
Does it bother you that the biggest anti-pot organizations are also major league gun-grabbers?
>>>Does it bother you that the biggest anti-pot organizations are also major league gun-grabbers?
Such as?
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Medical Association.
Posted on 04/18/2007 4:20:10 PM EDT by Teflonic
The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.
They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy.
THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer.
"The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer," said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.
Acting through cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2, endocannabinoids (as well as THC) are thought to play a role in variety of biological functions, including pain and anxiety control, and inflammation. Although a medical derivative of THC, known as Marinol, has been approved for use as an appetite stimulant for cancer patients, and a small number of U.S. states allow use of medical marijuana to treat the same side effect, few studies have shown that THC might have anti-tumor activity, Preet says. The only clinical trial testing THC as a treatment against cancer growth was a recently completed British pilot study in human glioblastoma.
In the present study, the researchers first demonstrated that two different lung cancer cell lines as well as patient lung tumor samples express CB1 and CB2, and that non-toxic doses of THC inhibited growth and spread in the cell lines. "When the cells are pretreated with THC, they have less EGFR stimulated invasion as measured by various in-vitro assays," Preet said.
Then, for three weeks, researchers injected standard doses of THC into mice that had been implanted with human lung cancer cells, and found that tumors were reduced in size and weight by about 50 percent in treated animals compared to a control group. There was also about a 60 percent reduction in cancer lesions on the lungs in these mice as well as a significant reduction in protein markers associated with cancer progression, Preet says.
Although the researchers do not know why THC inhibits tumor growth, they say the substance could be activating molecules that arrest the cell cycle. They speculate that THC may also interfere with angiogenesis and vascularization, which promotes cancer growth.
Preet says much work is needed to clarify the pathway by which THC functions, and cautions that some animal studies have shown that THC can stimulate some cancers. "THC offers some promise, but we have a long way to go before we know what its potential is," she said.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Association for Cancer Research.
You do realize that the RWJF basically funds the Million Moms, right? It all makes sense, typically when you are a control freak, one favors government intervention, be it drug wars or gun control. I don’t know how long you’ve been reading this site, but in the golden age of drug war debates, the pro-drug war people were also the first to attack 2nd Amendment rights.
Time to take a flight to Amsterdam !
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