cannabisnews.com: Medicinal Pot Goes To Supreme Court





Medicinal Pot Goes To Supreme Court
Posted by FoM on July 29, 2000 at 12:01:35 PT
By Josh Richman, Staff Writer
Source: Alameda Times Star
The federal government Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review -- and strike down -- a lower court's ruling that lets the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative dispense marijuana as medicine. If the high court denies the Justice Department's request for review, people across the western United States will be able to argue they have a medical necessity for the drug that protects them from federal prosecution. 
But if the Supreme Court takes the case and overturns last September's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, California's medicinal marijuana law will be gutted. The Justice Department also filed papers Friday in San Francisco asking the 9th Circuit to keep the Oakland cooperative from dispensing marijuana at least until October, when the Supreme Court will start its new term and decide whether to take this case. "It is disappointing that the federal government is trying to prevent patients in need from having access to the medicine they require when former recreational marijuana user George W. Bush is criticizing former recreational marijuana user Al Gore for being too soft on drugs," said Robert Raich, the cooperative's attorney. Californians in 1996 approved Proposition 215, which was meant to let seriously ill patients with a doctor's assent get and use marijuana without fear of prosecution. Cancer and AIDS patients use the drug's appetite-boosting effect to combat nausea and weight loss; others use it to fight symptoms of glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, multiple sclerosis and other ills. But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer closed the 2,500-member Oakland cooperative and five other Northern California clubs in 1998 after the government argued federal law bans all marijuana distribution and use, regardless of state law. Last September, 9th Circuit appellate judges told Breyer to reconsider the case and let the cooperative make a medical necessity argument. Breyer last week ruled the government had failed to dispute this argument, so the appellate ruling left him little choice but to let the cooperative start dispensing marijuana again. In a petition filed Friday at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department argues the 9th Circuit erred in allowing the medical necessity defense. Congress has given the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to dictate marijuana policy, it claims: "It has not left that determination to individual courts or juries -- much less to private organizations like the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative." Marijuana is among the federal Controlled Substances Act's most-restricted drugs -- deemed to have no currently accepted medical use, to pose a high risk for abuse and to be unsafe -- so recognizing a medical necessity for it directly defies Congress' judgment, the petition says. And the lower court's ruling "threatens the government's ability to enforce the federal drug laws in the nine states within the Ninth Circuit, which comprises a population of nearly 50 million people," the petition adds. Raich said the federal law's phrase "no currently accepted medical use" is different from "medical necessity." The former deals with whether the government recognizes a drug's value, he said, while the latter deals with a person's ability to preserve his or her own life. He also said the Supreme Court grants relatively few requests for review, and this case seems unlikely to attract its interest. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer had asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno not to seek this Supreme Court review. He contended the 9th Circuit and district court rulings had adequately fleshed out a legal framework for the state's vague medicinal marijuana law. Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin said Friday he does not know whether Lockyer will file a brief in support of the 9th Circuit ruling if the Supreme Court does decide to review the case. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state have passed medicinal marijuana laws similar to California's; all but Maine are within the 9th Circuit. Feedback:http://63.147.65.43/services/mainfeedback.asp?Paper=AngTsPublished: Saturday, July 29, 2000 © 2000 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG NewspapersRelated Articles & Web Site:Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperativehttp://www.rxcbc.org/Court's New Marijuana Stance Should Holdhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6526.shtmlFeds Appeal Area Judge's Pot Decision http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6525.shtmlGovernment To Appeal Court Ruling http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6522.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtmlCannabisNews Search - Oaklandhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=oakland 
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