Plainsman1963

US Supreme Court to Hear Medicinal Marijuana Case
11-12-2004 | Julie Carpenter | VOANews.com

Doctors in some parts of the United States have prescribed Marijuana to people suffering from a variety of medical conditions; from glaucoma patients to cancer victims undergoing painful chemotherapy. Though it is used for medicinal purposes in many parts of the world, Marijuana remains illegal in most countries.

Eleven U.S. states currently allow the use of Marijuana for medicinal purposes. The issue was also voted on in three states in the November election. It won passage in the northern state of Montana. But voters in the western state of Oregon turned down an initiative for strengthening an existing law that currently allows medicinal Marijuana use. And an initiative for outright legalization failed in Alaska.

The case before the Supreme Court, Raich et. al. vs. Ashcroft, stems from a California woman's appeal of her conviction under a federal narcotics law - the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 - that prohibits the distribution and sale of Marijuana and other illegal drugs across state lines. She and her co-defendants contend their home-grown plants were not being sold to people in other states and are therefore not in violation of the federal law regulating "commerce among the states."

Steph Shere is the executive director of the advocacy group, Americans for Safe Access. She says the federal law should not be enforced, especially in the more than eleven states, including California, that protect medical Marijuana users from being prosecuted for drug trafficking:

"The argument can be made for a patient who's living in California that's growing their own medicine, there's no interstate commerce that's happening. So therefore, the federal government does not have the jurisdiction to step in and interfere in these laws."

She says Marijuana can be used for relief from a variety of illnesses, including multiple sclerosis.

"Everything from helping chronic pain to being used as an anti-nausea medication. It is also used by M.S. patients to stop tremors and muscle spasticity. Scientists in Israel have found that the cannabinoid in the Marijuana plant could actually be the precursor to stopping the on-set of Alzheimer's."

Ms. Schere's claims run counter to the view of U.S. government medical professionals. David Murray, with the National Drug Control Policy office, says Marijuana in its dried leaf form - provides no proven medicinal benefits.

"Smoked Marijuana has never qualified as an accepted or proved medicine, has never demonstrated, by the standard criteria any new drug would have to go through before being approved, that it is safe to be used and that it is effective."

But Mr. Murray adds that the U.S. government is still evaluating whether the chemical compounds in Marijuana might be broken down for their possible medical value.

"Research is going forward to identify cannabinoid active ingredients that can be purified, regulated, standardized and dosed the threatening and risky elements removed and perhaps they could be turned into effective medicines for particular medical conditions. I think those trials are underway and so far, the results are promising but not convincing as yet."

In Britain, the law says cannabis can only be produced, possessed or supplied for research purposes under government license. G.W. Pharmaceuticals is one of the main British companies involved in cannabis drug trials. Company spokesman Mark Rogerson says G.W.'s product; called Sativex is currently awaiting regulatory approval in the United Kingdom.

"Approvals in the U.K. take between 12 and 18 months. That's par for the course if you like. The 18th month milestone was passed a month or so ago. So that's why we hope very much that we're in the final stages."

Mr. Rogerson says the medicine is derived from a whole plant extract, meaning it contains the two main ingredients of Marijuana. It is administered as a mouth spray. If it is accepted in Britain, approval for other European countries' markets will likely follow. But he concedes the United States is a difficult and expensive market in which approval for the new drug is less certain.

"We fully recognize that the U.S. is a huge opportunity for us. But at the moment, our thinking is: let's work in areas where the practical barriers to entry are a bit lower, for example, the European Union and the Commonwealth. We'll save the United States for when we're a bit bigger and stronger."

The drug is also awaiting approval in Canada. In the meantime, the government's Health Canada agency says dried Marijuana is distributed through legal avenues as a compassionate gesture to sick people. The drug is ordered from a government-funded and controlled cannabis plantation. But Canadian government scientists are still studying this program to make sure that the medical Marijuana is both safe and effective.

An Israeli pharmaceutical company, Pharmos, is also testing a variant on the active ingredient in Marijuana. The developer was scheduled to complete trials in September and hoped to follow with a U.S. Food & Drug Administration review that is expected to extend into 2006.

Experts are uncertain whether this month's Supreme Court hearing will lay the groundwork for tougher laws against medicinal Marijuana use or provide a blueprint for future legal distribution of the drug. In either case, health activists, social policy makers and international drug companies will be awaiting the Court's final ruling with great interest.

cristofo

Are cigarettes an accepted and proved medicine? Give me a break. Please!


That argument should be made to Congress, which classified Marijuana as a schedule 1 drug with no medical value.

Hansje

Aha!

Just when you think there's a chance to make some headway at the federal level, with Ashcroft being gone and hope that since there is no actual interstate trafficking if a medical marijuana user in California grows her own and is the sole beneficiary of what is grown, slam goes the federal gavel right down on your head! My head, your head, all the heads--of anybody interested in marijuana law reform.

Those bums on the Supreme bench don't have the guts to stand up for human rights and dignity. They're lazy and cautious courtesans of the federal administration and bureaucracy, so they will likely go back to the square-one argument in their judgment that federal law scheduling marijuana in Class I is trump, and federal law trumps state law, even if the Interstate Commerce Clause is conceded on in part or in full.

The only hope might be that Rehnquist somehow uses marijuana for relief from his chemotherapy and makes a progressive and reform-minded impression on the other Supremes. Not that many of them really care about Rehnquist, except maybe to die so that they can fawn and grovel and fight amongst each over as to who is most subservient and will make the best Chief Justice to replace Rehnquist. After all, there's more money in being Chief Justice. Piss on everything else and everyone else.

Oh, it'll be absolutely stomach-turning to observe it.

Post-Ashcroft nausea, too:

Gonzales is going to be the Attorney General, and he's a creature of the same gene pool as Ashcroft, that of a jackal. He's got his, and he's gonna keep it. To hell with everybody else. He'll do whatever W. wants, tortured by W's mangling of Spanish and mangling of logic. And if you attack his policies, you're racist. He could have gotten his experience working for a two-bit Latin American dictator for all the compassionate conservatism that he has thus far shown.

This blurb from Truthout http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111304A.shtml

Notwithstanding his mild-mannered appearance, Gonzales is the iron fist in the velvet glove. Gonzales, whom Bush affectionately calls "mi abogado" ("my lawyer"), wrote one of the most outrageous torture memos. On January 25, 2002, Gonzales advised Bush that "the war on terrorism is a new kind of war, a new paradigm [that] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders some of its provisions quaint."

Oh really? The "quaint" Geneva Conventions are treaties ratified by the United States, and therefore part of the supreme law of the land under our Constitution.

Gonzales also provided Bush with novel defenses against potential war crimes prosecutions that might result from torturing prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The 1996 War Crimes Act says that grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes. Thus, the definition of war crimes includes torture, inhuman treatment, and willful killing, as well as outrages against personal dignity. Gonzales advised Bush that he could avoid allegations of war crimes by simply declaring that Geneva doesn't apply to the
war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Mamabudz

The actual question should have been...Is there any history of medications being ingested by smoke inhalation?

The answer is actually, yes.

Until suspension sprays were created in the mid to late 40's, asthma medications were often prescribed in the form of burnt powders. Asthma cigarettes were even prescribed. In fact for thousand of years of medical history "incense" was used as a form of providing a medicine by inhalation and purifying a "sick" room. Even before germ theory was proven, it was understood that the air or "ether" could carry sickness and that certain incense such as camphor and cedar could counter these bad ethers.

As a child you may recall having a vaporizer when you were sick or your mother rubbing Vicks Rub on your chest. If you are ancient like me, you may remember inhaling steam mixed with various steeped herbs or the dreaded "mustared plaster".

As for marijuana cigarettes, they sure work fine for the remaining 11 patients receiving it from the governement and from the 100s of thousands of self medicating patients now.

Other than that...I think I'll take that break...and have a smoke

SinsemilaStreet

We should be happy that our voices are actually being heard and that we are getting a Supreme Court case in the first place. It is very rare cases to reach this height of justice.

This comes right on the heels of the Supreme Court saying 'hemp food' is okay. Currently, eleven states in our country have well-defined and common-sense medical marijuana laws.

All these baby steps are helping even though it may be hard to see.

This case will be either a big step forward or a big step back for medical marijuana backers. Either way it goes however, I know we will not back down and will keep doing our civil disobedience as no country...I repeat no country should have the authority to tell its citizens how to self-medicate. Especially one which is supposedly ruled 'by the people, for the people.'.

__________________
"...marijuana is one of the safest, therapeutically active substances known to man." ~DEA Law Judge Francis Young

"Don't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison." ~John Hardwick

Cassius

Damn straight. It shouldn't be enforced even without the state laws in place, but with them, enforcing federal law contrary to them is an outrageous infringement of state rights.

I don't know why only anti-prohobitionists can see this, but this screams CONFLICT OF INTEREST almost deafeningly. Of COURSE he says it has no medicinal value, he's with the ONDCP.

Perhaps that's because it hasn't gotten the research it would have if it weren't already Schedule I? DUH!

If chemical compounds within marijuana have possible medical value, how does its dried leaf form have no medical value?

__________________

{ Cassius, Your Humble Narrator }
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DukeOfString

The feds could easily argue that it is interstate commerce because it may have an impact on tourism. They could argue that people will be reluctent to visit that state because of the use of med. marijuana.

Cheap, but true.

Mamabudz

Effect on Tourism as an indication of effect on interstate commerce is not an argument that I beleive will be made in this case.

The argument that will be made is that the growing and distribution of a substance in State that is illicit Federally will find it's way into interstate commerce -- thereby effecting interstate commerce and giving the Feds an over-reaching reason to interfere with the State's law.

If Pot is grown in CALIFORNIA, will it remain in California?

Can we trust the people of California not to distribute on a national scale? Can we trust the people of each Med MJ state to abide by the "no interstate" commerce?

How will this effect the US Post for packages deriving from California to other states? How will this effect drivers crossing state boundaries? Does this make them subject to search?

What about trucks carrying produce? Many fruits and vegetables travel across the California border, can't contraband Pot travel that way too?

There are legitimate concerns on the part of the Federal Governemnt that will be brought to light here.

This will be a bumpy ride.... But the realistic issues of Marijuana are getting into the Mainstream Media -- FINALLY!!!

Me? I'm having a cookie ...and a smoke

Hugz,

Mama Budz

TEDMOR

[quote=SinsemilaStreet]

"Currently, eleven states in our country have well-defined and common-sense medical Marijuana laws."

Not to make trouble, but this statement is a stretch. Many states with medical Marijuana laws are quite restrictive and allow it for only a few very serious illnesses. Some states allow it only when conventional medications are found to be ineffective. Unlike natural Marijuana, many of the conventional medications pushed on (or by) doctors and the public by the pharmaceutical industry have significant risks and serious side effects for more than a few patients. There is significant variation in how patients respond to medications. Is it safer to take a valium than to smoke a joint for anxiety? Is it safer to take Prozak than to smoke a joint for depression? Is it safer to take Viox or codeine than to smoke a joint for pain? Marijuana can be eaten, or vaporized rather than smoked, if potential harm from smoke is a concern. Perhaps a Prozak, or Valium, or Ambian should be allowed only if patients do not respond well to Marijuana. Take a look at the potential risks and side effects to some of these conventional medications on one of the "health industry" websites. While some plants are dangerous (and can even kill you), on average, natural plant medications are safer than the synthetic, chemical, patented poisons pushed on the public by the Pharms industry. Perhaps this is because man (and all animals) have been injesting plants for thousands of years. Synthetic chemicals are a radical human experiment with uncertain and risky outcomes.

Lester Grinspoon had it right when he said we will not fully realize the potential of Marijuana until it is fully legalized. You should all be fighting for freedom, not for medical Marijuana. Otherwise we will end up with what Richard Cowen aptly calls the therapeutic state. Correct me if I am wrong here.

Mamabudz

Excellent point...

DO you feel that allowing Medical Marijuana to become a more common phenomenon will desenstize the issue such that legalization is more likely?

...have a cookie

Mama Budz