Plainsman1963

More Drug Law Insanity
07-21-2008 | Scienceblogs.Com | Ed Brayton

We all need to support Charles Lynch, whose trial on drug charges is scheduled to begin July 22nd. Lynch ran a licensed marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, CA, perfectly legal under that state's medical marijuana law. He was arrested last year on Federal drug charges and faces - get this - 100 years in prison. Why? Because he dispensed medical marijuana to a 17 year old, with his parents' permission (they went with him to get it, again as required by California law) for treating the symptoms of his bone cancer.

This is absolute insanity, and let's lay this insanity right at the feet of the people to blame: Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy and Stevens. Those six justices voted with the majority in Raich and upheld the primacy of the federal Controlled Substances Act over state medical marijuana laws. These are the justices who perversely decided that a constitutional provision giving congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce also gives them the power to regulate an activity that is neither interstate nor commerce.

Let's also place the blame on the Bush administration, which has zealously enforced the CSA against those following their own state law. The Supreme Court may have given them the authority to enforce the CSA over the laws of California, but the DEA still has the authority to put their resources into other areas and the DOJ still has prosecutorial discretion not to press such charges.

People are suffering from a myriad of diseases, and sometimes for the treatment of those diseases by chemotherapy, and that suffering can be reduced by using marijuana. This is all but indisputable. That we are allowing them to suffer in the name of the war on personal freedom drugs is cruel. That we are imprisoning those who seek to help ease that suffering is unjust and barbaric.