Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jun 2005
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2005 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Note: Does not publish letters from outside its circulation area.
Authors: David Whitney, and Claire Cooper, Bee Staff Writers
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Angel McClary Raich)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

U.S. MEDICAL POT BAN OK'D

Justices Rule State Cannot Trump Federal Drug Laws

WASHINGTON - A medical recommendation is not a ticket to legal
marijuana in California, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday in a
closely watched case in which the justices nonetheless expressed
sympathy for those whose illnesses have been alleviated by the use of
cannabis. In its 6-3 decision, the court held that laws in California
and nine other states permitting people with a doctor's recommendation
to cultivate, possess and use marijuana didn't trump the federal
government's authority to prosecute pot users - even the ill - on
federal drug charges.

The case before the court was brought by two Californians - Angel
McClary Raich of Oakland and Diane Monson of rural Butte County - who
said they would suffer irreparable harm if their supply of legal
marijuana dried up because of the ruling. Their appeal to the high
court challenged the power of Congress to prohibit personal use of
non-commercial pot under the guise of regulating interstate commerce.
The area of commerce regulation had been developing in recent years
along the lines of enhancing states rights and, in a previous opinion,
several justices had all but invited arguments that it applied to
medical pot.

Though the majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens,
stopped short of overturning California's laws, it disappointed
medical marijuana advocates who had hoped the high court would
recognize the rights of states to authorize medical pot use.

"We're not going away," Raich said Monday. "Just because we did not
win this battle does not mean we will not win this war."

Raich, who has a brain tumor and has credited marijuana with relieving
her misery to the point that she no longer requires use of a
wheelchair, urged supporters to turn to Congress for protection of
medical pot users.

She and plaintiffs' lawyer Randy Barnett of Boston University said
they'll move forward on two fronts:

* Pushing for a budget amendment barring the Department of Justice
from using federal money to interfere with state marijuana laws

* Asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at
two issues in their case - medical necessity and the fundamental right
of individuals to run their private lives without government
interference - that the circuit court didn't address and subsequently
were not included in the Supreme Court's review.

Raich obtains marijuana from caregivers who raise it for her. Monson,
however, grows her own, and after Drug Enforcement Administration
agents raided her home on Aug. 15, 2002, they destroyed her six plants
even though county sheriff's deputies argued her use of the drug was
legal under state law.

The women filed a lawsuit for an injunction barring federal drug
agents from enforcing the federal drug laws against those who grow,
possess or use medical marijuana.

The ruling appeared unlikely to have major practical consequence, at
least not immediately. Most marijuana cases are brought by the states,
and there's nothing in the ruling that compels states to act
differently now.

While it doesn't overturn California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, the
Supreme Court decision rejects what advocates thought was thought
their best argument - that state-authorized personal medical use of
home-grown pot is beyond the reach of federal regulation.

The justices said the California women's claims of suffering made
their decision difficult, but said state exemptions for medical
marijuana were certain to add to the street supply of pot.

"In contrast to most prescriptions for legal drugs, which limit dosage
and duration of the usage, under California's law the doctor's
permission to recommend marijuana is open-ended," the majority said.

The dissenters from the majority opinion - Chief Justice William
Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, both conservatives, and Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate - complained the ruling marked an
unconstitutional infringement of states' rights and warned that it
handed Congress broad powers to meddle in state issues.

"Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought
or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no
demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana," Thomas
wrote in a separate dissent.

"If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can
regulate virtually anything and the federal government is no longer
one of limited and enumerated powers," he said.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he was "disappointed but
not surprised." He said his office will advise law enforcement in
California "the same thing we've advised them all along ... that state
law provides for use of medical marijuana and the identity card system
- - but it conflicts with federal statutes."

On the federal side, Gordon Taylor, special agent in charge of the
Sacramento branch of the Drug Enforcement Agency, said he will sit
down with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California,
McGregor Scott, to determine which cases of medical marijuana
trafficking to pursue. He said cannabis clubs and other forms of
medical marijuana distribution violate federal drug laws.

"In terms of DEA enforcement, we don't target the sick and dying;
rather we target those people cultivating and trafficking in
marijuana," he said.

Scott said his office's prosecutions focus on large-scale drug
trafficking and that won't change because of Monday's high court ruling.

Scott said he could count the cases on one hand in which medical
marijuana is a factor. Those cases, he said, involve people claiming
that hundreds of marijuana plants they were growing were for medical
purposes.

"Now that fig leaf is gone, so we can go forward on those cases
without any concern," Scott said.

John Walters, President Bush's director of national drug control
policy, was more expansive, asserting that the ruling would put an end
to medical marijuana as a political issue.

"Smoking illegal drugs may make some people 'feel better,' " he said.
"However, civilized societies and modern-day medical practices
differentiate between inebriation and the safe, supervised delivery of
proven medicine by legitimate doctors."

Even in the majority opinion, however, the high court suggested that
the question of medically permissible marijuana belonged in the
political arena.

"Perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the
democratic process in which the voices of voters allied with these
(women) may one day be heard in the halls of Congress," the court's
ruling said. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake