Supreme Court to consider pot ban for patients

[Judi Lynn]

June 28, 2004, 9:24AM

Supreme Court to consider pot ban for patients
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said today it will consider whether sick people who smoke pot on a doctor's orders are subject to a federal ban on marijuana.
The court agreed to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say marijuana is the only drug that helps alleviate their chronic pain and other medical problems.

The high court will hear the case sometime next winter. It was among eight new cases the court added to its calendar for the coming term. The current term is expected to end this week.

The marijuana case came to the Supreme Court after the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that a federal law outlawing marijuana does not apply to California patients whose doctors have prescribed the drug.

In its 2-1 decision, the appeals court said prosecuting medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional if the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2650948
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[slackmaster]

1. Tick, tick, tick...

There's no way in Hell this edition of SCOTUS will allow a state to override federal law on this matter.

[Liberal Classic]

6. I'm sorry to say

That you're probably correct.

It seems to me that there's an undercurrect of paranoia surrounding the alleviation of pain. I believe that it is just wrong that people be subjected to suffering in the name of reducing drug abuse. Taking a personal anecdote, my late grandfather had chronic arthritis and degenerative disc disease in his back. Over the years his condition steadily worsened while his doctors kept scaling back on his pain drugs until he died a miserable bedridden death. His doctor once said something like "I'm sorry but I don't want to lose my license and go to jail."

[truthisfreedom]

2. dupe

[Kolesar]

4. where?

[Judi Lynn]

5. He's right. Just did a search on "marijuana" and found them

One was posted by CShine at 10:12 a.m.:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=651370

One was posted by TruthisFreedom at 11:36 a.m.:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=651680

Sorry. Didn't see anything. Only checked the first page.

[Kolesar]

7. thanks ... eom

[mongo]

3. The outcome on this one should be interesting.

I often wondered why Ca. didn't send out its Nat'l guard troops to protect the MJ clinics from the DEA.

[damnraddem]

8. Maybe not with this SCOTUS; but marijuana really should do well before ...

the high court.

[Gregorian]

9. In a free country, this would not even be an issue

What in god's name is our gov't spending our money, and it's time, on?
There are people starving, who could use our help. But no, we quibble over whether or not our people should be able to freely use a safe substance.
Hopeless.

[AndyTiedye]

10. Worse. Planes That Should Have Prevented 9/11 were Chasing Pot Smugglers

Ashcroft reassigned them.

I lost both parents to cancer. Both gave up on chemo due to quality-of-life (lack thereof).
If they had been allowed pot, it could have alleviated some of the side-effects of chemotherapy.

[Gregorian]

12. No kiding!

That's so sad about your folks. That really hurts. Insult to injury.

I know, for me, that the drug war changed my life in a very bad way. I felt like a stranger in my own country. I felt hunted like a fugitive. And pot was the only thing I really enjoyed, at one time in my life. And I'm sure others feel just the same way. Many citizens of this country now harbor resentment for their own nation. It's sick. And just like that war, the war on terrorism will have the same effect, and will not be dissolved so easily either.

[AngryAmish]

11. This is big - for reasons that have nothing to do with pot

The case was decided on Commerce Clause grounds, specifically that the Commerce Clause does not give the Feds jurisdiction over home-grown pot.

About five years ago, the Supremes voided the Federal law outlawing handguns near schools. They ruled that the Federal gov't does not have jurisdiction. (Since the New Deal the Supremes said that anything that effects commerce in the slightest way can be regulated by the Feds. Commerce clause is the way the Feds get most of their jurisdiction.) Over the last ten years the Supremes have twice limited Commerce Clause jurisdiction.

So, why is this a big deal? Depending how the opinion is written, much of the jurisdiction on workplace safety, enviroment, or any other gov't regulation could be severely restricted.

This could be the biggest case heard this year or in several years. WAY bigger than the Gitmo litigation.

[salin]

13. Have to wonder if they recognize that the days of their

solid majority... and the domination of legislation from the rw congress ... are numbered... and they are moving less cautiously than before (for a long time the SC has been pretty cautious about its selection of cases, particularly those that are "activist" in nature.) They seem to be getting more political ... Desparation? Getting done what all they can (and will be hard to undo even with a less conservative court) while they can?