Pubdate: Wed, 08 Jun 2005
Source: Peoria Journal Star ( IL )
Copyright: 2005sPeoria Journal Star
Contact:  http://pjstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/338

ALLOW DOCTORS TO PRESCRIBE MARIJUANA

You may not have thought to ask, but the answer is yes.  Those 
tomatoes you're growing in the backyard are subject to future federal 
regulation.

The U.S.  Supreme Court said so Monday when it found that federal 
authorities had the right to confiscate six marijuana plants a 
California woman grew for relief from severe back pain.  The court 
majority said the commerce clause of the Constitution gives Congress 
the right to regulate homegrown marijuana and denies states a 
role.  This is true even in cases such as this one, where the product 
wasn't being sold across state lines - in fact, wasn't being sold at 
all - because, according to the court, the mere possibility that it 
could be would have "a substantial effect on interstate commerce."

That the logical argument for federal regulation of commerce was 
carried here to an illogical extreme is easily obscured by the fact 
that the product was a narcotic.  But in backing up its decision, the 
court cited an earlier case involving wheat raised for home 
consumption.  So if Congress chose, it could go after your tomatoes - 
a point Sandra Day O'Connor made in dissent.

The justice castigated the court for failing to draw a line between 
commerce that is local and commerce that is national, a line that 
would acknowledge the difference between "backyard gardening 
vs.  going to the supermarket," between home care and day care, 
between parlor charades and movie theaters.

"The court's definition of economic activity threatens to sweep all 
of productive human activity into federal regulatory reach," she 
said.  "To draw the line wherever private activity affects the demand 
for market goods is to draw no line at all.  We have already rejected 
the result that would follow - a federal police power."

Well, apparently not.

Whatever problem the decision might raise someday for backyard 
gardeners, it creates an immediate and terrible hardship for Diane 
Monson and Angela Raich.  They took the case to the court after the 
Department of Justice confiscated Monson's marijuana plants.  The 
seizure followed a 3-hour standoff with local authorities defending 
her right to grow cannabis under the California law permitting 
doctors to prescribe it for serious diseases.  The women argued that 
the federal Controlled Substance Act, as applied here, illegally 
trampled on state rights.

In saying that it did not, the court also said that federal agents 
can now go after Angela Raich, who suffers from an inoperable brain 
tumor, scoliosis and chronic wasting disease, and whose doctor said 
marijuana was necessary to relieve her "excruciating pain." They can 
go after thousands like her.  But why on Earth would the feds want 
to? What national purpose does it serve to raid the homes of cancer 
victims and make their lives more painful?

The answer is none.  No great harm would be done the nation if 
Congress were to respond by carving out an exception for medical 
marijuana, under a doctor's supervision, as 11 states thought they had.