A Calif. Cannabis Group Is Asking The Supreme Court To Recognize A Medical Exception To Federal Drug Laws WASHINGTON - An attorney for an Oakland marijuana cooperative asked the Supreme Court yesterday to let sick people obtain marijuana to help alleviate their symptoms, in a case that pits the movement for state medical-marijuana laws against the federal war on drugs. The court should recognize a "medical necessity" exception to the federal prohibition on possessing and distributing marijuana, said Gerald F. Uelmen, who represents the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, one of several "cannabis clubs" that sprang up after California voters, in a 1996 referendum, legalized the doctor-approved use of marijuana. [continues 588 words]
WASHINGTON -- A California marijuana cooperative's lawyer has asked the US Supreme Court to let sick people obtain the drug to help alleviate their symptoms in a case that pits the push for "medical marijuana" laws against the federal war on drugs. Gerald Uelmen told the court it should recognise a "medical necessity" exception to the federal prohibition on the possession and distribution of marijuana. Mr Uelmen represents the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. The cooperative is one of several "cannabis clubs" that sprang up after California voters approved a referendum in 1996 permitting doctor-approved marijuana use. [continues 310 words]
An attorney for an Oakland marijuana cooperative asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let sick people obtain marijuana to help alleviate their symptoms, in a case that pits the movement for state "medical marijuana" laws against the federal war on drugs. The court should recognize a "medical necessity" exception to the federal prohibition on the possession and distribution of marijuana, said Gerald F. Uelmen, who represents the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, one of several "cannabis clubs" that sprang up after California voters approved a referendum in 1996 permitting doctor- approved use of marijuana. [continues 344 words]
Lawyer For Calif. Group Urges Justices To Allow Sick People To Use Substance To Alleviate Symptoms An attorney for an Oakland, Calif., marijuana cooperative asked the Supreme Court yesterday to let sick people obtain marijuana to help alleviate their symptoms, in a case that pits the movement for state "medical marijuana" laws against the federal war on drugs. The court should recognize a "medical necessity" exception to the federal prohibition on the possession and distribution of marijuana, said Gerald F. Uelmen, who represents the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, one of several "cannabis clubs" that sprang up after California voters approved a referendum in 1996 permitting doctor-approved marijuana use. [continues 750 words]
In a victory for civil-liberties advocates and abortion rights groups, the Supreme Court today ruled that hospitals cannot administer drug tests to pregnant women without their consent and forward positive results to the police. By a vote of 6 to 3, the court held that the drug tests conducted in the past by a Charleston, S.C., public hospital amounted to warrantless police searches of the women. The searches could not be justified by local authorities' expressed interests in protecting the health of the women or their unborn children. [continues 645 words]
Justices Strike Hospital's Testing, at Police Behest, of Nonconsenting Pregnant Women The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a public hospital cannot administer drug tests to pregnant women without their consent and forward positive results to police. The decision limits how far government agencies may go in gathering and disseminating private information about citizens -- even when it is supposed to be for their own good. By a vote of 6 to 3, the court held that tests of expectant mothers' urine for cocaine, conducted by medical personnel in cooperation with local law enforcement officials at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, amounted to unconstitutional police searches. Officials' professed goals -- protecting the health of the women and their unborn children -- did not justify conducting the tests without a search warrant, the court said. [continues 965 words]
Among the many new tools modern technology has put at the disposal of law enforcement is the Agema 210 thermal imager, a device officers can point at a house to measure heat emanating from inside. Police use them because sometimes a suspicious heat flow can be evidence of criminal conduct. That was the situation on a winter evening in Oregon in 1992, when federal officers used an Agema 210 to help them determine that the unusual heat pattern coming from Danny Kyllo's house was produced by high-intensity lamps that Kyllo was using to illuminate an illegal indoor marijuana nursery. [continues 535 words]
The Supreme Court held a spirited, sometimes heated argument yesterday on the question of whether the Constitution permits a public hospital to send pregnant women who test positive for cocaine to law enforcement authorities. At issue in Ferguson v. City of Charleston is a policy under which the Medical University of South Carolina administered drug tests to pregnant women without a search warrant and then forwarded some positive results to the police. A victory for the women could indicate that the court is growing reluctant to add to the list of governmental "special needs" that may justify warrantless searches. A victory for the city, however, might considerably expand that doctrine. [continues 760 words]
The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case that will decide whether police can set up roadblocks and subject cars to inspection by drug-sniffing dogs without a warrant. The case, Indianapolis v. Edmond, calls on the court to balance society's interest in promoting innovative police tactics in the war on drugs against the Constitution's guarantee of individual freedom from unreasonable detention by law enforcement authorities. For about three months in 1998, Indianapolis police set up a series of highway checkpoints in high-crime areas, where they stopped cars and examined the drivers' licenses while drug-detecting dogs circled the stopped vehicles. There were 1,161 such stops, resulting in 104 arrests, 55 of them on drug charges. [continues 469 words]
