Pubdate: Wed, 08 Jun 2005
Source: East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Copyright: 2005 East Valley Tribune.
Contact:  http://www.eastvalleytribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2708
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Raich v. Ashcroft)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA UP IN SMOKE

California's medical-marijuana law would seem a classic case of states' 
rights. It was approved by the voters at large in a ballot initiative and 
as a law by the state legislature.

The commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution would seem not to apply 
because the product was grown entirely in the state, was never bought and 
sold and never crossed state lines. And the marijuana was made available to 
qualified patients by state-regulated doctor's prescription.

Nine other states, from Maine to Hawaii, have similar laws, so this is 
hardly an ill-considered proposition.

But the Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 3, didn't see it that way. 
Justices ruled that the feds can prosecute patients whose doctors have 
prescribed marijuana to ease chronic, debilitating pain.

In asserting federal primacy over marijuana, the majority argued on the 
basis of several likelihoods -- the likelihood that medical marijuana would 
be diverted to the illegal drug market, the likelihood that unscrupulous 
drug dealers would exploit the law, the likelihood that unscrupulous 
physicians would over-prescribe and the likelihood that medical marijuana 
might find its way out of state.

Conceivably this could happen, but the ruling saddles federal drug agents 
with a really small-bore law-enforcement problem. In this particular case, 
federal agents, over the protests of the local district attorney, showed up 
at the home of Diane Monson, 46, who suffers from a degenerative spine 
disease, and tore up the six marijuana plants in her backyard. Monson, who 
had a doctor's prescription for the plants, has never been charged.

The court, Congress and the Bush administration have become schizophrenic 
about states' rights: They are for them except when they are against them. 
It's hard to quarrel with Justice Clarence Thomas' 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."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager