cannabisnews.com: Court To Decide if Anti-Drug Laws Apply To MMJ





Court To Decide if Anti-Drug Laws Apply To MMJ
Posted by CN Staff on June 29, 2004 at 10:05:02 PT
By News-Medical.Net
Source: News-Medical.Net
On Monday 28th June 2004, the court agreed to hear an appeal filed by the U.S. Attorney-General, John Ashcroft. The appeal will push President Bush's stance prohibiting the use of marijuana "in all instances". The Ashcroft v. Raich case came to the Supreme Court after the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law outlawing marijuana does not apply to California patients whose doctors have prescribed the drug.
California and eight other states have legalized medical marijuana.In most nations, marijuana is rarely prescribed by physicians due to its legal status. When prescribed, it is often prescribed as an appetite stimulant and pain reliever for terminal illnesses including cancer and AIDS. The medical use of marijuana is controversial and is dealt with under the article medical marijuana. See section on History for information on historical and other medical use.Marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes since at least 2,000 years ago. Surviving texts from China, India, Greece and Persia confirm that its hallucinogenic properties were recognized, and the ancient doctors used it for a variety of illnesses and ailments. These included a whole host of gastrointestinal disorders, insomnia, headaches and as a pain reliever, frequently used in childbirth. The earliest recorded reference to medicinal marijuana is in the Ry-Va (ancient Chinese Pharmacopeia), believed to have been written in the 15th century BC. These ancient uses are well-documented, but are not proof that marijuana is a useful medicine.Marijuana as a medicine was common throughout most of the world in the 1800s. It was used as the primary painkiller until the invention of aspirin. Modern medical and scientific inquiry began with doctors like O'Shaughnessy and Moreau de Tours, who used it to treat melancholia, migraines, and as a sleeping aid, analgesic and anticonvulsant.By the time the United States banned the plant (the first country to do so), it was no longer extremely popular. The only opponent to the bill, The Marihuana Tax Act, was the representative of the American Medical Association.Later in the century, researchers investigating methods of detecting marijuana intoxication discovered that smoking the drug reduced intraocular pressure. High intraocular pressure causes blindness in glaucoma patients, so many believed that using the drug could prevent blindness in patients. Many Vietnam War veterans also believed that the drug prevented muscle spasms caused by battle-induced spinal injuries. Later medical use has focused primarily around its role in preventing the wasting syndromes and chronic loss of appetite associated with chemotherapy and AIDS, along with a variety of rare muscular and skeletal disorders. Less commonly, marijuana has been used in the treatment of alcoholism and addiction to other drugs such as heroin and the prevention of migraines.In 1972 Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D. reignited the debate concerning marijuana as medicine when he published "Marijuana Medical Papers 1839-1972".Later in the 1970s, a synthetic version of THC, the primary active ingredient in marijuana, was synthesized to make the drug Marinol. Users reported several problems with Marinol, however, that led many to abandon the pill and resume smoking the plant. Patients complained that the violent nausea associated with chemotherapy made swallowing pills difficult. Smoked marijuana takes effect almost immediately, and is therefore easily dosed; many patients only rarely smoke enough to feel the mental effects, as this is usually far more than is necessary for the medical effects -- many complained that Marinol was more potent than they needed, and that the mental effects made normal daily functioning impossible. In addition, Marinol was far more expensive, costing upwards of several thousand dollars a year for the same effect as smoking a weed easily grown throughout most of the world. Many users felt Marinol was less effective, and that the mental effects were far more disastrous; some studies have indicated that other chemicals in the plant may have a synergistic effect with THC.In addition, during the 1970s and 1980s, six US states' health departments performed studies on the use of medical marijuana. These are widely considered some of the most useful and pioneering studies on the subject.Complete Title: U.S. Supreme Court To Decide Whether Anti-Drug Laws Should Apply To The Medicinal Use of Marijuana  Source: News-Medical (US)Published: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Contact: editor news-medical.net Website: http://www.news-medical.net/ Related Articles & Web Sites:Tod Mikuriya M.D.http://www.mikuriya.com/Raich vs. Ashcroft http://www.angeljustice.org/Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmSupreme Court Justices To Decide MMJ Disputehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19094.shtmlMarijuana Backers Pleased by Justices' Decisionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19093.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #7 posted by FoM on June 29, 2004 at 13:40:21 PT
Article By William F. Buckley Jr. 
Free WeedsConservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws concerning marijuana aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or -- exulting in life in the paradigm -- committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo? Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these -- 87 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10 billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense. What we face is the politician's fear of endorsing any change in existing marijuana laws. You can imagine what a call for reform in those laws would do to an upward mobile political figure. Gary Johnson, as governor of New Mexico, came out in favor of legalization -- and went on to private life. George Shultz, former secretary of state, long ago called for legalization, but he was not running for office, and at his age, and with his distinctions, he is immune to slurred charges of indifference to the fate of children and humankind. But Kurt Schmoke, as mayor of Baltimore, did it, and survived a re-election challenge. But the stodgy inertia most politicians feel is up against a creeping reality. It is that marijuana for medical relief is a movement that is attracting voters who are pretty assertive on the subject. Every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has been approved, often by wide margins. Of course we have here collisions of federal and state authority. Federal authority technically supervenes state laws, but federal authority in the matter is being challenged on grounds of medical self-government. It simply isn't so that there are substitutes equally efficacious. Richard Brookhiser, the widely respected author and editor, has written on the subject for the New York Observer. He had a bout of cancer and found relief from chemotherapy only in marijuana -- which he consumed, and discarded after the affliction was gone. The court has told federal enforcers that they are not to impose their way between doctors and their patients, and one bill sitting about in Congress would even deny the use of federal funds for prosecuting medical marijuana use. Critics of reform do make a pretty plausible case when they say that whatever is said about using marijuana only for medical relief masks what the advocates are really after, which is legal marijuana for whoever wants it. That would be different from the situation today. Today we have illegal marijuana for whoever wants it. An estimated 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, the great majority abandoning its use after a few highs. But to stop using it does not close off its availability. A Boston commentator observed years ago that it is easier for an 18-year-old to get marijuana in Cambridge than to get beer. Vendors who sell beer to minors can forfeit their valuable licenses. It requires less effort for the college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel. Still, there is the danger of arrest (as 700,000 people a year will tell you), of possible imprisonment, of blemish on one's record. The obverse of this is increased cynicism about the law. We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates reform of those laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children." Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug? Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson. Source: uExpress.com Author: William F. Buckley Jr. Published: Tuesday, June 29, 2004Copyright: 2004 uclick, LLCWebsite: http://www.uexpress.com/
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by FoM on June 29, 2004 at 13:19:50 PT
kapt
I knew Alison didn't win and I couldn't bring myself to tell you.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by FoM on June 29, 2004 at 13:17:50 PT
Related News Article from Forbes
Medical Marijuana Grows Support Quentin HardyJune 29, 2004SILICON VALLEY - Does the Supreme Court's decision on medical marijuana mean America is going to pot? Not exactly, but it could signal a growing movement. On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal on a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that people who smoke marijuana with the OK of a physician are exempt from a federal law that bans the drug. The circuit court had ruled that medical marijuana users were not in violation of federal law because they were not engaged in interstate commerce or commercial activity by consuming marijuana. If the Supreme Court lets the decision stand, one likely outcome will be more cultivation of marijuana in the United States, as patients will want to show that their marijuana did not cross state lines, which could bring them under federal jurisdiction. Probably not big news for the bottom line at Home Depot, but good news for entrepreneurs selling grow lights and marijuana nutrients to U.S. customers. Such a ruling "would certainly give people more freedom for locally contained activities," says Bruce Mirken, director of communications at The Marijuana Policy Project, a group focused on removing criminal penalties for marijuana use. "It would create an atmosphere where states that have medical marijuana laws can pursue a provision to grow their own, or to have a caregiver grow for them." Currently, he said, some patients feel more at risk with a pot plant sitting in their backyard than they do buying marijuana from drug dealers. Would such a decision be bad news for the mammoth Canadian marijuana industry? Probably, but they still have several million recreational users in the U.S. they can supply. http://www.forbes.com/sciencesandmedicine/2004/06/29/cz_qh_0629med.html
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on June 29, 2004 at 12:54:31 PT:
Many thanks , Cloud
Though I'm saddened that Ms. Myrden apparently didn't get elected. That would have been a real coup...
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by cloud7 on June 29, 2004 at 12:41:27 PT
Canadian elections
Here's a topic on the elections from the Cannabis Culture forums. There is a whole section of the forums devoted to the elections.http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=887356&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on June 29, 2004 at 12:36:41 PT:
Unrelated: Canuck friends, some info please
I've been looking through the online Canuck newspapers and have been unable to learn about whether Alison Myrden won her riding in yesterday's Canadian election. Any news?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by Virgil on June 29, 2004 at 11:10:39 PT
Hemp Culture playing cards are on the market
It is not drug warrior cards of politicians that need to be made ex-politicians, but they are playing cards - http://tinyurl.com/2k35h
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment