Supreme Court Says Government Can Prosecute Medical Marijuana Patients

By Gina Holland
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

Stevens said the court was not passing judgment on the potential medical benefits of marijuana, and he noted "the troubling facts" in the case. Monson's backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized by federal agents in 2002, although the California law was on Monson's side.

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.

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On the Net:

The ruling in Gonzales v. Raich is available at:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050606raich.pdf

AP-ES-06-06-05 1209EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBRKJFWM9E.html

Cool. Once we fill up the prisons with all the drug users there won't be anyone for the drug makers to sell to and the problem will fix itself!

I think that the government should legalize it, tax it and regulate it like they do booze. They should change the name of the ATF to ATMF (as if we don't call them that already anyway).

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One major problem with that. I can grow a plant in my closet easier then you can make beer. So in the end I can have as much as I want to smoke and the Tax man is shit out of luck.

Can you grow a tobacco plant? Just curious.

I don't smoke do I don't know anything about tobacco, but I would guess you could. I for one make my own Beer, if I buy it I don't buy US crap so I have to make it to have the money. If Pot was legal I would be growing today.

The tax man limits how much beer one can make each year, so I suppose that capping the amount of weed that can be grown is just as viable and enforcable.

- Ace

As of right now we have
Yes, 100% ___________12____70.59%
For Medical use only____2_____11.76%
Maybe_______________2_____11.76%
Not at all_____________1_____5.88%

OK I said 100%. I seen some people did not. How about listing reasons we feel the way we do?
My reasons: Probation of anything does not work. Alcohol didn’t work. Pot it’s not working. Prostration it’s not working. All it does is drive up violent crime to hold that “probation” market.

If I remember right the limit of beer is 100 Gallons a year per person. 200 Gallons per house hold.
100 Gallon (US) = 12800 oz. / 365 (every day of the year) = 35.56 Oz a 6 pack of beer is only that is about 2 ¼ beers per day. Do you really need more then that? Even if you’re a 6 pack a day person that would sheer cut your spending. And add a spouse that does not drink and your up to 4 ½ cans a day. Not bad.

How much Beer do you really need? Would Pot be on the same kind of scale?

I'll clarify my "Yes" vote.

I'm of the opinion that ALL drugs should be legalized, including the nasty ones like heroin and meth. Face facts, and one will realize that prohibition and interdiction simply don't work, are an incredible drain on the treasury, and make criminals out of people who are otherwise only hurting themselves.

I'm not convinced that legalization would result in a dramatic increase in usage, especially if a good portion of the money that is currently spent on enforcement is channeled into education and treatment. If heroin were suddenly legal tomorrow, I don't see a huge rush of people suddenly running out wanting to shoot junk up their arms.

As I said in the thread with Darko's pretty pictures, the main result of the criminalization of the drug trade is to make some very mean and nasty people with lots of guns incredibly wealthy.

- Ace

I doubt there are many people who are not doing drugs simply because of the illegality of it. Myself, I don't do drugs because I think it's stupid and I don't want to screw up my body, and I don't think I should depend on chemicals to make myself feel good.

Yes you can, but like booze, don't get caught trying to sell it.

Nah, if you wanted to do something stupid like that just go after the distributers.. Personally I think we should leave the violent assholes in there for the terms that they're supposed to serve rather than letting them out "to make room" or "to save money".

Of course, you could always just charge people big fees whenever you catch them and forget about jail time entirely. Or the alternative to that would be to make it legal, and then tax the living shit out of it, 500% or something.... hah hah...

1. Considering more dangerous drugs, like morphine and oxycontin are routinely prescribed, what's the problem with low amounts of regulated pot regulated by doctors?

2. The medical marijuana system is abused in California, no doubt.

3. Why do tens of thousands die in car crashes / get hurt / abuse their children / commit rape and other offenses while using a legal drug called alcohol, yet pot, which I've never heard of any rash of pot-related crime / deaths?

People may find it interesting that I feel the way I do about this, but if we are going to allow cigarettes and alcohol to be legal, then logically pot should also be legal.
I've never had to wrestle a person high on pot to the gurney, or gone to the scene of a fatal crash resulting from a person's use of pot...
I can't tell you the number of deaths I've seen from alcohol related crashes, liver failure, or lung disease though. It's somewhat hypocritical of the government to keep pot illegal...

The problem is that the pot lobby doesn't have enough money to contribute to the "re-election funds" of the politicians. They spent it all on doritoes

Also, this is a states rights issue. The states should be able to make up their own minds on this, without interference from the federal government...

I would still not use it whether it was legal or not, but I don't think it should be illegal for everyone, especailly those who can benifit medically from it.

Dirk

Simply and plainly....ignore any and all "Blah, blah, blah" bullshit from anyone who is against the legalization of pot...and still drinks (even just now and then), they have no defensible position on the topic at all (not even "well, I don't like pot...so it should be illegal". Pot is illegal due to there not being any organized PAC or lobby for it (Now, if say all the Rappers and Comedians who espouse the virtues of the plant would form a coalition...).

And lets not kid ourselves anyone. This is the real issue here. Like I've always said... Abuse a privledge and expect consequences.

Just great we are going to lock up sick people. When my mother was dying of cancer had asked for a joint to ease the pain by god she would of gotten it. I don't care what the bushies or the feds have to say about it. What a person uses to ease the pain of illness is not the buisness of the goverment but a personal choice of that person.

Rox

Well the abuse involved if people using a drug for recreational purposes that is was only legal for Medicinal ones.

That doesnt necisarly invalidate the arguement that it might be better to just make it legal.

Remember at one time alcohol was illegal. This ban didnt work so well, and it was repealed.

The use of marajuana isnt as widespread as alcohol was then , so its much easier to keep it illegal.

Whether or not a prescription drug is more dangerous then marajuana is an interesting idea, but this fact, and the frequency or lack thereof of car accidents from Marajuana's use I dont think even enter into the decision making process.

I think Marajuana is illegal mainly becuase .. they decided it and a lot of other drugs needed to be illegal right around the time they outlawed Alcohol.

The addiction rates I dont believe were any higher when all of these things (marajuana, opiates, cocaine) were legal. In fact with the exception of alcohol I would speculate they were considerable lower.

What a bull**** piece this decision was.

What the Supremes have essentially done is written a blank check to the Federal Government to continue abusing it's powers vis a vis "The Commerce Clause", and operating outside the boundries of the Constitution that the Founding Fathers laid down. My hat's off to the dissenters for their staunch support of states rights against Federal tyranny.

Was anyone surprised by the outcome? Did anyone really think that the Federal Government was going to allow the Supreme Court to make a huge dent in their hyper-socialistic boondoggle called "The War on Drugs". There are billions of taxpayer dollars tied up in prisons and Government salaries.

Unfortuantely, the Supremes also had some f-ed up, wrongheaded precident to work from. This crap started in 1942 with Wickard v. Filburn, in which a farmer was told that he couldn't grow wheat for his own personal use because it had the POTENTIAL to be interstate commerce (ie, if he wasn't growing it for himself, he COULD have bought some OUT OF STATE.) Apparently, the Supreme Court has figured out how to merge legal theory with the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics.

There is no way that this decision makes any sense, if you actually read and understand the Constitution. This is all about politics, and maintaining power. This was a classic case of "making laws from the bench" as opposed to actually interperating them.

This isn't just about pot: this is about the Federal Government being allowed to UnConstititionally override the rights of States. It just got dressed up in the clothing of pot, because the know-nothing "faux Patriots" who have never read the Constitution in their life will support it more readily that way.

They sort of assumed this power in 1919 when it was made into an ammendment that the US goverment could outlaw alcohol,

Repealing it later , but they still asserted that the Federal goverment can control all these things.

It really shouldnt be the case since the way its worded as long as the State doesnt violate the rights of citizens, or directly interferes with vested powers of the constitution, they have the right control their own internal laws.

People forget that when the Constitution was orignal written , States were afraid of losing autonomy. The Constitution was written to provide for this.

People also forget that a good deal of the states refused to sign until a Bill of Rights was decided on. So that there would be rights neither the Federal Government, nor the States could take away.

What? You never heard of the Chips-Ahoy Cookie Raid of '96?

The only people who need to be afraid of a pack of "doped up pot fiends" are the good people at Frito-Lay and Little Debbie, who are in dire jeopardy of being attacked by massive and malicious profits!!

Oh! The snacking! The snacking!