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US: Supreme Court to Hear Medical Marijuana Case Nov. 29th
11/24/2004 | JoinTogether.Org

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that pits two ailing women who use medical marijuana against the federal government. The high court's decision could impact the direction of the medical-marijuana movement, the Washington Times reported Nov. 22.

The case, which will be heard Nov. 29, was brought by Diana Monson and Angel McClary Raich of California, where using marijuana for medical purposes is legal under state law. In 2002, federal agents seized their marijuana plants and charged them with possession of marijuana under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Last year, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the two California residents a preliminary injunction, ruling that their cultivation and use of marijuana was considered noncommercial and therefore outside federal jurisdiction.

"A decision that upholds the Ninth Circuit Court would allow individuals to grow their own cannabis in states that allow it," said Randy Barnett, a professor of constitutional law at the Boston University School of Law, who will argue the case for Raich and Monson. "But more than that, this case is about federalism and that idea that this application of the Controlled Substances Act is an overreach of the federal government. The state has authorized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. I am representing two clients who are suffering. This is not a case connected to the war on drugs, because my clients are not taking part in trafficking or using recreational drugs."

The federal government contends that federal agents were simply following the law, saying, "Congress's conclusions that the local manufacture, distribution, and possession of drugs, including marijuana, are significantly linked to the commerce in drugs regulated under the statute and that comprehensive regulation of that local activity is essential to effectuate control of the interstate drug market."

The government also plans to argue that, "The Controlled Substances Act constitutionally regulates the commercial market in marijuana, which is international and interstate in scope."

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Cassius

So basically they just admitted that this is infringement of state rights, but that it's necessary if they are going to get the war on drugs under control.

Sorry buds, maybe this is a newsflash for you but constitutionally derivated rights can't be usurped just because the federal government isn't making progress in the war on druuuuugs.

Not even counting the fact that it's very unlikely you'll EVER win the war on drugs.

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killer12382

What exactly is states rights in the Bush era? Since GW has equated drug use to terrorist support and therefore national security outweighs states rights, where does medical marijuana stand at? From my point of view medical pot is on some very shaky ground. The nation (due to fear mongering) has taken a shift to the right. GW is about to stack the supreme court with right wing zealots. I would like the court and the government to approach pot logically but right wing conservatives like Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh (not to mention Scalia) are still suffering from reefer madness.
States Rights is just a slogan used by the right when it serves their needs.

SinsemilaStreet

Even though this will be a win or loss on the 'official' legal front for medical marijuana that will not stop our right to civil disobedience against unjust laws by the Federal Government.

I'm hoping though, that it'll be a win as we could really use some clarification one way or anotheron how our Judicial system interprets these laws.

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"...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

PotShot

I am extremely excited about this upcoming decision. I hope our checks and balance system is still operational, and that the judicial branch recognizes that the other two branchs have gone slightly wayward in this particular area.

But, on the other hand, its too late and maybe all the branchs are against us. They decide Federal rights override state rights, and their power increases. So our only defense would then lay in grassroots orgainization and lots and lots of activism.

I am going to try to have faith though... it seems pretty clear cut that personal, medicinal use has nothing to do with commercial trade. All it takes is to recognize that simple fact, and that starts unlocking other doors. Like the notion that compassion clubs should be able to keep cannabis in stock, and cultivate it in mass quantities, to sell(within state lines of course. ) to sick people who might not have the energy, time, or training to grow some good bud .


Of course with the increase in users, so increases the common knowledge of the truth about cannabis:It is a wonderfull, amazing plant.


SinsemilaStreet:
I agree, things like this are kinda like a "win-win" situation... if we lose all it does is stir more people up.

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Bluee

I have faith in this court when it comes to state rights over federal rights... but I just wish it wasn't the court that elected Bush into office.

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Pessimism is being content when things go bad, while enjoying life when proven wrong.

StewScum

But with Bush soon to appoint a few more judges, it might not be about what the law actuallly says.

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Life is like a pot of stew, if you don't stir it up every once and a while, all the scum rises to the top -Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.

Bluee

Supreme Court to weigh medical Marijuana laws
Plaintiff calls it a life-and-death issue
Friday, November 26, 2004 Posted: 1:42 PM EST (1842 GMT) | cnn.com

OAKLAND, California (AP) -- Traditional drugs have done little to help 39-year-old Angel Raich.

Beset by a nightmarish list of ailments that includes tumors in her brain and uterus, seizures, spasms and nausea, she has been able to find comfort only in the Marijuana that is recommended by her doctor.

It eases her pain, allows her to rise out of a wheelchair and promotes an appetite that prevents her from wasting away.

Her Berkeley physician, Frank Lucido, said Marijuana "is the only drug of almost three dozen we have tried that works."

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will determine whether Raich and similar patients in California and 10 other states can continue to use Marijuana for medical purposes.

At issue is whether states have the right to adopt laws allowing the use of drugs the federal government has banned or whether federal drug agents can arrest individuals for abiding by those medical Marijuana laws.

California passed the nation's first so-called medical Marijuana law in 1996, allowing patients to smoke and grow Marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. The Bush administration maintains those laws violate federal drug rules and asserts that Marijuana has no medical value.

"I really hope and pray the justices allow me to live," said Raich as she crammed a blend of a Marijuana variety known as "Haze X" into a contraption that vaporized it inside large balloons.

She said the outcome of the case will determine whether her "husband will have a wife," her "children a mother."

The case will address questions left unresolved from the first time the high court considered the legality of medical Marijuana.

In 2001, the justices ruled against clubs that distributed medical Marijuana, saying they cannot do so based on the "medical necessity" of the patient. The ruling forced Raich's Oakland supplier to close and other cannabis clubs to operate in the shadows.

The decision did not address whether the government can block states from adopting their own medical Marijuana laws.

Nevertheless, the federal government took the offensive after the ruling, often over the objections of local officials. It began seizing individuals' medical Marijuana and raiding their suppliers. Nowhere was that effort more conspicuous than in the San Francisco Bay area, where the nation's medical Marijuana movement was founded.

Raich and Diane Monson, the other plaintiff in the case, sued Attorney General John Ashcroft because they feared their supplies of medical Marijuana might dry up. After a two-year legal battle, they won injunctions barring the U.S. Justice Department from prosecuting them or their suppliers.

"This has been a nightmare," said Monson, a 47-year-old accountant from Oroville whose backyard crop of six Marijuana plants was seized in 2002. "I've never sued anyone in my life, never mind the attorney general of the United States of America. For crying out loud, here in California we've voted to allow medical Marijuana."

She regularly uses Marijuana on a doctor's recommendation to alleviate back problems. She says it also helps cope with the recent death of her husband, who suffered from pancreatic cancer.

Last December, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Raich's and Monson's favor. It said federal laws criminalizing Marijuana do not apply to patients whose doctors have recommended the drug.

The appeals court said states were free to adopt medical Marijuana laws as long as the Marijuana was not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes. The other states with such laws are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

The court ruled that Marijuana for medicinal purposes is "different in kind from drug trafficking" and outside the scope of federal oversight.

The same court last year said doctors were free to recommend Marijuana to their patients. The government appealed, but the Supreme Court justices declined to hear the case.

In June, however, the justices agreed to hear the Raich-Monson case. A ruling is expected to decide the states' rights issue the court left unanswered in 2001.

Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement told the justices in briefs that the government, backed by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, has the power to regulate the "manufacture, distribution and possession of any controlled substance," even if such activity takes place entirely within one state.

Besides California, the states allowing Marijuana to be used as medicine with a doctor's recommendation are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

Even some states without medical Marijuana laws have criticized the federal government's position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court they "support their neighbors' prerogative in our federalist system to serve as laboratories for experimentation."

A number of medical groups, doctors and Marijuana supporters also wrote the court, saying Marijuana benefits sick patients.

Raich, whose legal team includes her husband, Robert, said she hopes the chemotherapy Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is undergoing for thyroid cancer "would soften his heart about the issue."

"I think," she said, "he would find that cannabis would help him a lot."

The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, case no. 03-1454.

Stephanie S.

I found it interesting that the attorneys for Ashcroft, et al are not only numerous but powerful:

THEODORE B. OLSON, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record
PETER D. KEISLER, Assistant Attorney General
EDWIN S. KNEEDLER, Deputy Solicitor General
LISA SCHIAVO BLATT, Assistant to the Solicitor General
MARK B. STERN, ALISA B. KLEIN, MARK T. QUINLIVAN, Attorneys Department of Justice

For Angel McClary Raich, et al. have: Robert A. Long, Joshua D. Greenberg, and Robert A. Raich, David M. Michael, and Randy E. Barnett.

They have 7, Mc Clary has 5. Their 7 includes the resources of the entire Department of Justice. Maybe its just me, but it looks like the scales of justice may be slightly tipped in favor of Ashcroft.

I'm anxious to find out how this goes. Monday is the big day!

peace

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)

Bluee

No one said the legal battleground was a fair one. What is equal representation?

Too bad Raich doesn't have the NAACP circa 1950 on her side... she could use it.