cannabisnews.com: Medical Pot Wins a Legal Victory Medical Pot Wins a Legal Victory Posted by CN Staff on December 17, 2003 at 07:30:27 PT By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Source: San Francisco Chronicle Medical marijuana advocates scored a potential legal breakthrough Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that two Northern California women could use locally grown pot without risking federal prosecution. The federal ban on marijuana is probably unconstitutional as applied to individuals who obtain the drug without buying it, get it within their state's borders and use it for medical purposes on their doctors' advice and in compliance with state law, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco -- the first court ever to issue such a ruling. The 2-1 decision could be short-lived, however. The appeals court has regularly seen its precedent-setting decisions, particularly those by liberal panels, overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2001, the high court overruled a Ninth Circuit decision that would have allowed marijuana cooperatives to supply the drug to patients who could not be treated by legal substances. The 2001 ruling expressly left some marijuana-related issues unresolved, including the question addressed Tuesday: whether Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce applies to locally grown medical marijuana. Attorney Robert Raich, whose daughter, Angel of Oakland, is one of the two plaintiffs in the case, said he thought the ruling stood a strong chance of withstanding a likely appeal by the Bush administration's Justice Department. "It's really based on the Supreme Court's own precedents,'' he said, citing decisions from the past decade that have limited Congress' power to regulate local, noncommercial activities, such as gun possession near schools. The ruling left a dent in federal drug laws that could get deeper in the near future. Another panel of the court is considering appeals by two medical marijuana distributors -- a collective in Santa Cruz and a buyers' cooperative in Oakland -- that claim a constitutional right to supply pot produced within California. Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/17/MNG9K3P15V1.DTL Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff WriterPublished: Wednesday, December 17, 2003Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page A - 1Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Sites:Raich v. Ashcroft in PDFhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/ruling.pdfMedical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmMajor Ruling Favors Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17977.shtmlMedical Pot Users Win Key Ruling http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17976.shtmlAppeals Court Sets Aside Federal Marijuana Lawhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17975.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #9 posted by schmeff on December 17, 2003 at 11:56:25 PT How the Feds Will Appeal The Commerce Clause has been stretched and pulled into a loophole big enough to drop the Constitution through. This is the argument the Feds will use, they've been successful with it before:A sick person who uses cannabis for medical reasons would otherwise have to purchase another 'medicine' to relieve his/her suffering. Using cannabis will preclude this need to purchase medicine on the market, and this will affect commerce.Of course this line of reasoning infers that there is no aspect of human activity that is not subject to federal oversight, which is something that the original framers clearly did NOT have in mind....but then power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.Our Constitution was supposed to protect us from the totalitarian impulses of Nazis like Ashcroft, Bush & Walters. Will it prove strong enough? [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by jose melendez on December 17, 2003 at 10:27:22 PT links to cort records URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1932/a10.html Newshawk: Write a LTE today! See: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ Webpage: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/F847B86BCD2AB49488256DFE007B89AE/$file/031 Pubdate: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 Source: Redding Record Searchlight (CA) Copyright: 2003 Record Searchlight - The E.W. Scripps Co. Contact: letters redding.com Website: http://www.redding.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360 Note: The actual decision is a .pdf document available at the webpage above, or by going to http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov and click on "opinions" at the upper left. Then select Raich vs. Ashcroft Also: To download the major pleadings from the litigation go to http://raich-v-ashcroft.com and http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/documents/index.html#drugs Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/appeals+court COURT OKS USE OF MEDICAL POT December 17, 2003 -- 2:07 a.m. Federal officials may not prosecute marijuana smokers whose doctors say pot is their only medical relief - -- at least so long as the users grow their own or obtain it from growers without charge, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 2-1 decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco would protect many medical marijuana users from prosecution in states that have laws approving the use of marijuana for medical purposes. "This is huge. This essentially makes Prop. 215 federal law in California," said Dale Gieringer, one of the co-authors of the proposition, which legalized medical use of marijuana in California. The measure, passed by California voters in 1996, was the first medical-marijuana law in the United States. bust these crooks [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Sam Adams on December 17, 2003 at 10:22:11 PT Bob Bob said "the more man smoke herb, the faster Babylon fall" [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by jose melendez on December 17, 2003 at 09:49:36 PT get up, stand up http://www.bobmarley.com/songs/songs.cgi?getup bus Ted [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by jose melendez on December 17, 2003 at 09:48:45 PT take away ev'rything, and make ev'rybody feel high Preacher man don't tell me heaven is under the earth I know you don't know what life is really worth Is not all that glitters in gold and Half the story has never been told So now you see the light, aay Stand up for your right. Come onMost people think great God will come from the sky Take away ev'rything, and make ev'rybody feel high But if you know what life is worth You would look for yours on earth And now you see the light You stand up for your right, yeah!We're sick and tired of your ism and skism game Die and go to heaven in Jesus' name, Lord We know when we understand Almighty God is a living man You can fool some people sometimes But you can't fool all the people all the time So now we see the light We gonna stand up for our right Rights left? [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by SystemGoneDown on December 17, 2003 at 07:57:22 PT: Sam Adams... That's a question we've ALL been asking for a while. If medical marijuana becomes legal through the state, what the hell makes the feds think they can come in a raid houses and procecute these people? Our founding fathers came to America to escape oppressive English rule, much like this ...the feds basically bullying the state. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by SystemGoneDown on December 17, 2003 at 07:50:29 PT: We're Taking em' Down!!! ...and I love it. I never knew something as slight as medical marijuana poses such a deep but little-known threat to the dictators that we call the U.S. federal government. Medical Marijuana is getting backed by their own damn judges. This is great. It's almost 2004, it's about time that people saw the injustice of marijuana prohibition. Great day, I think I'll drink to this, and hopefully one day I'll be able to smoke out in front of a punk ass cop, and he won't be able to do shiznotta! Smoke on Americans, in the words of Bob Marley "Stand up for your Rights" [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on December 17, 2003 at 07:47:53 PT The whole shebang Doesn't this ruling call into question the entire Controlled Substances Act? If cannabis is grown, sold, and consumed all in the same state, what authority do the Feds have under the Consitution to regulate ANY of it, or anything else for that matter?Is this common sense, or am I a Libertarian whacko for asking this question? These are strange times we're livin' in today. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo MD on December 17, 2003 at 07:46:26 PT Correction Angel is Mrs. Raich, not Rob's daughter! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment