Pubdate: Mon,  4 Nov 2002
Source: International Herald-Tribune (France)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2002
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Note: This was originally published in The New York Times.

YES TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A federal appeals court in California last week struck an important blow for
medical marijuana, and for the First Amendment. It held that the government
cannot revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana to their
patients. The federal government should now abandon its misguided policy of
targeting doctors and sick people to fight marijuana use. The ruling gives
new life to the medical marijuana initiative, also known as Proposition 215,
which California voters passed in 1996. The law permits seriously ill people
to use marijuana on the advice of their physicians, and it says that doctors
may not be punished for recommending marijuana to their patients. Shortly
after it became law, the federal government announced that it would use its
authority under the Controlled Substances Act to revoke the prescription
licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana to a patient.

The appeals court rightly held that the policy strikes at "core First
Amendment interests of doctors and patients," by interfering with doctors'
ability to give honest and candid medical advice. If the government wants to
go after those who buy and sell marijuana, it should go after them directly
and not suppress protected speech as a backdoor means of enforcing drug
laws.

The decision should prompt federal and state governments to reconsider
policies on medical marijuana. The war on drugs surely has better targets
than cancer patients and terminally ill people who use marijuana, on the
advice of doctors, to reduce their pain.
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