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Edited on Tue Jun-07-05 11:16 PM by WillowTree
I just read the SCOTUS opinion and it does not make any ruling for or against the medicinal use of marijuana. Citing a 1942 SCOTUS ruling in the case of Wickard vs. Filburn, yesterday's ruling dealt with whether or not Congress, and not the individual states, has the constitutional authority to regulate in this instance. My best friend suffers terribly with MS and could get significant relief from MJ and we've been hoping and praying for legalization for medical purposes in Illinois, so I really wanted to disagree with this ruling. But after reading it and the background info and the Supremes' rationale, it was the right decision based on the Constitution and long-standing case law. Dammit!
Here's the underlying problem as close as I can tell: Marijuana is regulated under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 which was enacted in order to consolidate and more or less standardize the plethora of drug laws on the books at the time. Under this act, all controlled substances were categorized into five classifications based on "their accepted medical uses, the potential for abuse, and their psychological and physical effects on the body........... Schedule I drugs are categorized as such because of their high potential for abuse, lack of any accepted medical use, and absence of any accepted safety for use in medically supervised treatment." Because of its addictive properties and the fact that, when the act was written, there was no medically accepted use for marijuana at the time, it was (correctly at that point in time) classified as a Schedule I substance. "By classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug, as opposed to listing it on a lesser schedule, the manufacture, distribution, or possession of marijuana became a criminal offense, with the sole exception being use of the drug as part of a Food and Drug Administration pre-approved research study."
So what needs to happen is, now that there is substantial evidence of medicinal benefit from controlled use of marijuana to persons suffering with certain kinds of diseases, it needs to be re-classified so that it can be legally prescribed. But there's a catch. A big one.
The Controlled Substances Act gives authority to periodically amend the schedules to the Attorney General (after his or her consultation with the Department of Health & Human Services. We can assume that getting AG Gonzalez to roll over on this isn't going to be easy, but the fact is that awareness of the medicinal uses of marijuana has been developing for ten years or more and Janet Reno didn't do it, either. My take on it is that attorneys and those in law enforcement in general are loathe to grant any legal status to the use of marijuana at all. The whole "slippery slope" thing yadda, yadda, yadda. (And truthfully, medical legalization might eventually lead to general legalization at some point, but for right now, my primary concern is the medical.)
SO, I think the best hope at this juncture is for everyone to put steady pressure on our senators, congresspersons and our governors of both parties for them, in turn, to pressure the Administration, and the next, and the one after that, if necessary, to get marijuana re-classified to at least Schedule II status. And I don't think, if it's approached properly and non-confrontationally as an obvious issue of compassion, I don't think that the roadblocks are insurmountable, conceivably even before the Bush Administration ends. Remember, Gonzales takes his marching orders from the President (and likely Rove) and it would make excellent politics for them to be able to say that Compassionate Use was achieved during their administration.
And, bottom line, I don't give a damn who gets credit for doing it, so long as it gets done at the earliest possible date.
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