Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jun 2005
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2005 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Gonzales v. Raich )

COURT RULING ALLOWS PERSECUTION BY FEDS

State Should Still Protect Authorized Users

Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has restricted the
federal government's role in regulating what happens within states'
borders. But faced with applying its new view of federal deference to
10 states' medicinal marijuana laws, the justices flinched.
Consistency failed when it came to the feds' misguided war on drugs.

On Monday, the court ruled 6-3 that federal officials can prosecute
people with debilitating illnesses who smoke pot with doctors'
permission. Congress' power under the Constitution to regulate
interstate commerce gives it the right to ban any use of marijuana
under any circumstance, the majority said.

Never mind that the justices have warned Congress that the interstate
commerce clause is not an open-ended excuse to meddle in state
matters. The justices first did that in 1995, when, in a decision that
looks even quirkier now, a majority said Congress had no authority to
ban guns within 1,000 feet of a school.

Never mind that in 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215,
allowing medicinal marijuana to relieve suffering. Never mind that
Proposition 215 tightly regulated marijuana distribution, to keep it
from getting into the hands of those who would traffic in it.

This marks the second time that the Supreme Court has ruled against
medicinal marijuana. In 2001, it unanimously stated that there is no
exception under the federal Controlled Substances Act permitting a
defense of "medical necessity" in the production and distribution of
marijuana.

The latest decision will not overturn Proposition 215. We encourage
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer,
county sheriffs and police chiefs to quickly affirm that they will
continue to protect authorized users of marijuana -- even if that puts
them at odds with the feds. But the decision will leave users of
medicinal pot, like the two women who were the focus of the case,
Angel McClary Raich and Diane Monson, vulnerable to arrest by federal
drug agents. It will place at great risk those courageous enough to
dispense the drug to them.

In his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said Congress has
the power to amend the Controlled Substances Act. While true, it has
been the mulish refusal of Congress and presidents to accommodate
medicinal marijuana that led states to act on their own in the first
place.

Three years ago, federal agents seized a half-dozen of Monson's pot
plants despite the efforts of local sheriff's deputies to block them.
We hope that, having won its case and made its point, the Bush
administration will stop persecuting those who are already suffering. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake