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Jeff Miller
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Joined: 22 Nov 2001
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Location: Mental Ward for the Mentaly Unstable 6th floor, Saint John's 1615 Delaware Longview Washington 98632
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 Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:01 pm U.S. Supreme Court outlaws medical marijuana use |
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| Quote: | U.S. Supreme Court outlaws medical marijuana use
12:39 PM PDT on Monday, June 6, 2005
by kgw.com and AP Staff
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the U.S. 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, including Oregon and Washington, 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 Oregon, Kevin Neeley, a spokesman for state Attorney General Hardy Myers, said the decision could lead to federal action against Oregonians who hold medical marijuana cards.
"Today's decision gives federal authorities in Oregon enhanced footing should they choose to pursue a cardholder who is operating in compliance with Oregon law," he said. "The Attorney General has said from the outset that we would defend Oregon's law against federal challenges. In light of today's decision, we need to review whether or not we are still able to do that."
In Oregon and Washington, as in the eight other 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. |
great lets take away in some cases the last chance for peace that people in pain have. 
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:05 pm |
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Alright, Rush Limbaugh was raging about this earlier today, and I agree with him:
Alright, whether you support the use of medical marijuana or not (which I think I don't) we HAVE to look at the constitutional side of this, and frankly what these judges did IS truly wrong. What they did was basically say that it had to do with inter-state trade, when in fact it does NOT. They pointed to cases in the past which really weren't right. So, in fact this violates states rights to such a degree with a bogus argument.
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madlilnerd
Duchess of Dancemat
Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 5885
Location: Slough, England
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:07 pm |
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Marijuana... good topic seeing as I currently have trace amounts of it in my body from the passive inhalation of it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with marijuana as long as the user does not take it infront of minors or in a public place.
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Captain Patrick
Commodore
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2421
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:11 pm |
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I think that this is bad because some people need it to help with their problems or people who just rented the Matrix 
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:54 pm |
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Isn't cannabis on the "controlled substances list", putting it under Fed jurisdiction?
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"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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Zeke Zabertini
Captain
Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 4832
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:31 pm |
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Constitutionally-speaking, Republican_Man is probably right. As long as it's a completely localized process, the federal government should technically not have jurisdiction in a commercial sense. However, as a ban on an action (growing/owning/using marijuana) rather than the trade and sale of a product, the federal government does have authority in the matter.
Based on existing Constitutional, federal, and precedent laws, I think that the Supreme Court has made the correct (legal) decision. Now, as to whether federal law ought to be changed to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes as authorized by a liscensed physician... I have no comment.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
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| Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:33 pm |
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An interesting way have you used to draw your conclusions...however, I am convinced that this is not the constitutional manner, and mind you I think that the Federal government's law is fine (although I think I may be against it, but I haven't decided), however it violates the constitutional rights of the states, and their reason did not have solid justification. They really just pointed to a ruling from 1942 (forget which) and said that it dealt with "inter-state commerce," which it doesn't.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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IntrepidIsMe
Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002
Posts: 13057
Location: New York
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| Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:16 pm |
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I don't see the big deal as far as for medical use. If it helps make life just that much more bearable for people in extreme pain, why not?
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"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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Birdy
Socialist
Joined: 20 Sep 2004
Posts: 13502
Location: Here.
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| Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:02 am |
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^ Yeah, I agree. Why not, if it's the only thing that will releave your pain???
Alcohol is much worse for the human body than cannabis.
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Nosce te ipsum
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