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Let The Sick Use Marijuana
The Supreme Court kicked the issue to Congress, which now should act
Newsday | 06/08/2005

The Supreme Court has spoken on the subject of medical marijuana. Federal authorities can prosecute sick people for using the drug, the court ruled Monday, even in states with laws that make medicinal use legal. But just because Washington can prosecute, that doesn't mean it should.

In deciding against two California women who sued after the Drug Enforcement Administration busted them for using locally grown marijuana to relieve symptoms of a variety of conditions, the court said it's up to Congress, or the president, to move medical marijuana beyond the reach of federal drug law. Congress should do it. There's no good reason to thwart the will of the people in the nine states where voters, or their legislative representatives, have approved the use of marijuana to relieve the debilitating nausea and wasting of chronic illness.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has been trying for 10 years to move Congress to direct federal law enforcement officials to stand down. He has reintroduced his states' rights to medical marijuana bill in the House again this year - with 30 co-sponsors. "People are kind of afraid of it," Frank said of his colleagues. The lawmakers should find a little spine.

The high court tossed the ball to Congress after ruling reluctantly that, given the current state of the law, it cannot justify barring the prosecutions of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The only issue before the court was whether the Constitution's commerce clause, which authorizes Congress to regulate interstate trade, applied even though the marijuana in question was neither commercially traded nor moved across state lines. Tortured, but well established, court precedents said that it does, because there is "a rational basis" for concluding that marijuana, even though intended for home consumption, "has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity." That's a stretch.

Diane Monson has a painful degenerative spine disease. The DEA, in an August 2002 raid, confiscated six marijuana plants that she had grown for her own consumption. Angel Raich, who has a brain tumor and scoliosis, got her marijuana free of charge from a friend. It's difficult to see how circumstances such as theirs could significantly impact the national supply or demand for marijuana.

Afflicting the sick is no way to wage War on Drugs.

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