cannabisnews.com: Medicinal Marijuana Users Sue U.S. Officials





Medicinal Marijuana Users Sue U.S. Officials
Posted by CN Staff on October 10, 2002 at 10:53:30 PT
By Jane Meredith Adams, Special to the Tribune
Source: Chicago Tribune 
A new front opened Wednesday in the long-running battle to make marijuana available for medical use as two patients sued Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, charging that the federal government may not interfere in states where patients legally are permitted to use marijuana as medicine.Eight states--California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado--have laws allowing patients to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. 
These laws conflict with federal law that classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive classification, and mandates that it should be seized.At issue is how much authority the Drug Enforcement Administration has over state officials. After a DEA raid of a medical marijuana distribution club in nearby Santa Cruz this summer, the question was informally debated in an exchange of letters between California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and Hutchinson. Defending the DEA's legal supremacy, Hutchinson noted that in May 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the prohibitions of the Controlled Substances Act "regardless of any `medical' justification under state law."Speaking at a news conference at federal district court in Oakland, plaintiff Angel McClary Raich of Oakland said that a nurse in 1996-97 had suggested that she try marijuana to relieve her pain, nausea and wasting syndrome. At the time, Raich was partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. "I was extremely offended," she recalled.But after trying various narcotics and medications prescribed by her doctor, Raich said she tried marijuana in late 1997 and found that it controlled pain, nausea and weight loss. In 1999, she was able to walk again but remains ill with an inoperable brain tumor and other ailments.Smoking, eating or inhaling the vapors of the drug, Raich said she now uses 2.5 ounces of marijuana a week, or more than 8 pounds a year. She said marijuana allows her to function and raise her two teenage children."The government has waged a civil war against sick, disabled and dying Americans," Raich said. "If cannabis works for us, we should be able to have that medicine."The other plaintiffs are Diane Monson, 36, a bookkeeper who said she suffers from chronic back pain, and two individuals named as John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2. They are Raich's caregivers and grow marijuana for her.Monson said she was following county and state law by growing six marijuana plants in rural Oroville, Calif., for her personal medicinal use. Last August, DEA agents raided her home, cut down the plants and seized them. She was not charged with a crime.Attorney Robert Raich, who married Angel McClary Raich two months ago, said the federal government had overstepped its authority by interfering in an activity that involves patients and substances solely within California. "For the federal government to attack patients and caregivers for activities that never cross state lines is an absolute violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution," said Raich, who is representing the plaintiffs.Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)Author: Jane Meredith Adams, Special to the TribunePublished October 10, 2002Copyright: 2002 Chicago Tribune CompanyContact: ctc-TribLetter Tribune.comWebsite: http://www.chicagotribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:OCBChttp://www.rxcbc.org/News Articles -- WAMM Raidhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/valc.htmGrowers File Suit To Stop Federal Raids http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14412.shtmlMedicinal Pot Users Renew Legal Challenge http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14410.shtmlMedical Marijuana Users Sue Federal Officialshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14398.shtml 
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Comment #3 posted by DdC on October 10, 2002 at 11:10:18 PT
The U.S. Declaration of Cannabis Independance...
http://www.usacitylink.com/usa/declaration.htmlWhen, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Welcome to Reality
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/index.htmlWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers form the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmPrudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. http://www.mapinc.orgThe history of the present Drugczar is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.http://www.waronsomedrugs.com/He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.http://www.csdp.org/He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.http://maximizingharm.com/He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.http://www.nrle.org/He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/DEAth.htmlHe has dissolved representative (safe) houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.http://www.kubby.org/He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.http://www.drugpolicy.org/He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.http://www.famm.orgHe has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/politics/media/37/37825.gifHe has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/million.htmHe has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.http://www.cures-not-wars.org/He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec97/cr062597b.htmFor quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:http://www.november.orgFor protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:http://www.hr95.orgFor cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:http://www.hemptech.comFor imposing taxes (fines) on us without our consent:http://www.fear.orgFor depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:http://www.mikuriya.com/althealth/drugwars.htmlFor abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:http://www.colombiareport.orgFor taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:http://www.fear.org/chicago.htmlFor suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtmlHe has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch05.htmlHe has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.http://www.cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=Pine+Ridge&H=40&SM=on&T=BHe is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of D.E.A.th, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a Cabenet Position in a civilized nation.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread14389.shtmlIn every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/36/36294.gifWe, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these states, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the D.E.A.th, and that all political connection between them and the states of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor....http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/35/35603.gif"In a civilised society, it is the duty of all citizens to obey just laws. But at the same time it is the duty of all citizens to disobey unjust laws." - Martin Luther King Jr.http://www.greenpanthers.org"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out." -William L. ShirerWally the Terrorist 
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/politics/media/39/39850.jpgPeace, Love and Liberty in Solidarity or The Murdering Goofy D.E.A.th!
DdCD.E.A.th Deceptions
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/DEAth.htmlU.S.Al Qaeda!
http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/39/39670.gif
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Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on October 10, 2002 at 11:09:33 PT
Holy cow!
I can't believe vaporization actually made it into a news article! If we keep having outbreaks of truth like that, who knows what will happen.Sadly, a bunch of Canadian AIDS patients will still be smoking schwaggy ditchweed while the kind bud rots in a warehouse, and stoners around the world use efficient, healthy, cheap, vaporizers. Why? Because they're under the care of doctors, that's why. What a joke. We're seeing the deployment of a carefully planned course of action by the Canadian pols to avoid legalizing medical MJ at the behest of Uncle Sam. 
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Comment #1 posted by malleus on October 10, 2002 at 10:59:07 PT
Right where they live
The feds have always said that they base their 'authority' on the INTERstate commerce clause of the constitution. The weed that was grown and consumed by WAMM never made it out of the state, much less the county. Time to hit them back in their bureaucratic backsides with that.
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