Pubdate: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 Source: Missoulian (MT) Copyright: 2005 Missoulian Contact: http://www.missoulian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/720 Note: Only prints letters from within its print circulation area Cited: Gonzales v. Raich ( www.angeljustice.org/ ) Cited: Drug Enforcement Administration ( www.dea.gov ) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Raich v. Gonzales) IDEA OF LIMITED GOVERNMENT GOES TO POT SUMMARY: Real implications of medical marijuana case involve the expanding reach of the federal government. The federal government may enforce a zero-tolerance policy on marijuana because drug laws passed by Congress trump state laws permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday. You have to wonder whether this ruling will have much actual effect on patients following their doctors' recommendations to use marijuana to relieve pain. It's hard to imagine the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency getting so caught up on its work shutting down meth labs and nabbing cocaine smugglers that it can devote much time to rounding up cancer patients. Even if it did, what prosecutor with a sense of justice would help strip a terminally ill patient of his last refuge from pain? Indeed, in Montana, among the 10 states where voters have approved limited use of medical marijuana, the attorney general said the feds will get no help from him. No, for the real impact of Monday's decision, you have to read all the way through to Justice Clarence Thomas' dissent. Thomas points out that the two California women at the center of Monday's decision use marijuana, in accordance with state law, "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." "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause," Thomas wrote, "then it can regulate virtually anything - and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." What he's talking about, of course, is the fact that the Constitution clearly defines - and limits - the power of the federal government, with all other powers reserved to the states. There is a clause in the Constitution giving Congress authority to regulate interstate commerce. That's the commerce Clause Thomas refers to. That power was supposed to be limited to regulation of interstate commerce - not all commerce. The medical use of marijuana involves so few people that it's insignificant in the context of America's war on drugs. Still, the issue chafes many pseudo-conservatives because they simply are opposed to marijuana use as a matter of principle. You don't have to share those values to understand them. What's harder to comprehend is that one of the bedrock principles on which the United States stands - limits to the scope of federal power over the states - would be so carelessly discarded to accommodate a policy that has some immediate political appeal but almost no real importance. As a skirmish in the war on drugs, Monday's opinion borders on the trivial. It looms larger as a potential precedent legitimizing bigger, intrusive and all-powerful government. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake