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you'd think ginsgerg would want some for his throat cancer or whatever he's got.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state medical marijuana 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 that it lost in late 2003. At issue was whether the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was cons utional.
Under the Cons ution, 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.
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 respondents 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.
In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
"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 by other states' rights advocates.
The legal question presented a dilemma for the court's conservatives, who have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years, invalidating 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 was 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."
The case concerned two seriously ill California women, Angel Raich and Diane Monson. 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, California, has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.
you'd think ginsgerg would want some for his throat cancer or whatever he's got.
I'm with Sandra on this one:
In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
"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 by other states' rights advocates.
6-3 overturned? That means two justices changed sides since the last time this was decided a couple years back.
The four "newest" SCJ's (Ginsberg, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer) I thought were in favor of this in '03. I wonder which two flipped, since O'Connor wrote the dissention?
In related news ... pharmaceutical stocks are up!
What gets me is that some of the same people (and money!) behind enacting smoking bans and anti-smoking campaigns also support the legalization of marijuana.
Rumor has it they'd still be against smoking in public areas but have no problems if you want to smoke your brains out in the privacy of your own home.
That's pretty much wrong. The people behind the legalization of MJ are more along the lines of libertarians and people who support personal responsibility. Those are definetly not hte people pushing smoking bans.
Restaraunts aren't public areas.
They are to me. That is why sometimes I like to meet in a "public place" like a restaurant.
But technically maybe you are right.
For those of you that don't know, the Controlled Substances Act that is cited in this article is 35 years old (it passed in 1970), and no substances have ever been removed from it. New items are added to it almost on a yearly basis, the most recent newsworthy item anabolic steroids.
I'm not a member of NORML or anything, but the CSA is an antiquated piece of legislation that was designed to rein in hippies. Did you know that the CSA allows DEA agents to search and seize any property they feel contains drugs abused by a citizen without a warrant, including Valium, Zanex, and Soma?
Here's a listing of all the substances influenced by it, pharmaceuticals included: http://www.connapa.org/contdrug.html
Honestly, people have no idea what liberties they've given away because of the indoctornation that your government makes you free. No sir, the government takes freedoms away.
Well, I know quite a few people who would cut off their nose to spite their face, especially if it came to W & the republicans.
"Anti-smoking" is a rallying cry to fight huge corporations ("Big Tobacco") that are taking advantage of the little guy. Never mind that most Tobacco farms in the US are small and in disadvantaged areas. If you think that all people who support anti-tobacco legislation do so purely because they have the interests of smokers in mind, you're nuts.
"Pro-Marijuana" is a rallying cry to keep conservatives ("Big Brother") from infringing on what goes on in the privacy of their own home. The same argument is put forth for other laws that are unpopular.
The anti-big tobacco crowd doesn't want you smoking products from big tobacco in the privacy of your own home, because these companies would still profit.
That's what I was referring to. I used to work in CA; I can name over 50 people who believe this.
I'm talking about the organized groups tackling these issues.
People are dumb.
Both smart and dumb people donate money to political action groups.
No doubt. But in general, I've come to the conclusion that people are simply dumb.
Two more things regarding the CSA, and then I will get off my soapbox.
It is so freakin' complex that the outline of it is 32 single spaced pages long, and hasn't been updated in a published format since 1990.
The DEA was established in 1973 by presidential order from Nixon, so this act was enforced by the FBI for the first three years of its existance. It pissed Nixon off to no end that Hoover was able to use the CSA on whomever he wanted. When J. Edgar died in May of '72, Nixon put Alex Haig on the task of creating an independent agency. Two big opponents of the DEA proposal that were moved to other projects were White House counselor Donald Rumsfeld and his outspoken young aide Cheney.
Imagine that, a government do ent becoming bloated and ineffectual.
Drug laws need to be simplified, no doubt, but think of all the violence that is being perpetuated in Mexico and spilling into Texas over this crap. Is a marijuana smoker going to go out and rob somebody? Probably not. The protection of the end user is one reason for drug policy, but so is the prevention of organized criminal activity, which can escalate to high levels of violence.
And Manny, don't give up on mankind just yet. Everyone has their positive attributes, except Miami Heat fans.
Uh, I'm sorry but drug policy is the biggest contributer to organized crime. It's about as effective at stopping OC as dropping gasoline on a fire is at putting it out.
There is one reason drugs like MJ are still illegal. The corporate drug lobby.
I rock my Adidas, never rock Fila, never sniff the cocaine, only smoke the sinsemilla.
Experimentation with drugs is a decision that all young adults face and they must be ready which is why I recommend open parental discussions on this subject.
Avoiding reality sometimes causes blindness to the effects of drug abuse.
dr phil your wife has tight body on her
Good to know that Latin isn't a dead language.only smoke the sin semilla
tell that to all the city councils around the u.s. banning smoking in restaurants...
I hope it didn't take all 25 years of your life to figure that one out.
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