cannabisnews.com: Medical Marijuana Use Under Feds’ Challenge





Medical Marijuana Use Under Feds’ Challenge
Posted by FoM on August 07, 2000 at 22:54:56 PT
Editorial
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The new Hawaii law authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes could come into conflict with federal authority. Such a conflict is being played out in California, where the Justice Department is arguing that doctors who recommend the drug lose their right to prescribe legal medicines. The argument was made at a hearing in San Francisco on a suit seeking to protect doctors from punishment for advising their patients to use marijuana.
An order issued by a federal judge in 1997 barred the federal government from acting against California doctors who recommended marijuana under a 1996 initiative. That measure allowed patients to use marijuana without risking prosecution under state drug laws. However, it could not override federal laws outlawing marijuana. U.S. District Judge William Alsup must decide whether to extend, expand or withdraw the order.The Clinton administration opposed the 1996 initiative. Its drug policy chief, Barry McCaffrey, announced after its passage that any doctors who prescribed or recommended marijuana would lose their federal licenses to prescribe drugs, would be excluded from Medicare and MediCal and could face criminal prosecution.In response, a group of doctors and their patients filed a lawsuit, claiming the government was violating their freedom of speech. The injunction protecting doctors followed.At a hearing last week, Joseph Lobue, a Justice Department lawyer, said, "It doesn't matter what California says. There is a national standard."A doctor who recommends the use of marijuana, the attorney said, "has recommended use of a drug that has been found to be unsafe" by Congress and the Food and Drug Administration. He likened it to a lawyer's recommending that a client commit perjury.Lobue denied that federal authorities were threatening criminal prosecution but said doctors who suggested the use of any illegal drug risked losing their right to participate in federally regulated programs, including drug prescription.Supporters of the Hawaii law maintain that physicians need not fear federal action if they recommend marijuana use. In view of the case in California, it appears that question is yet to be decided.Note from Star-Bulletin: The issue: A California law authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes is being challenged by the federal government. Our view: The new Hawaii law could face a similar challenge.Contact: letters starbulletin.comFeedback: http://starbulletin.com/forms/letterform.htmlPublished: August 7, 2000© 2000 Honolulu Star-BulletinRelated Articles & Web Sites:Drug Policy Forum Of Hawaiihttp://www.drugsense.org/dpfhi/No One Certified Yet To Receive Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6636.shtmlMedical Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6625.shtmlClinton Asks Supreme Court To Overturn MMJ Rulinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6558.shtmlHawaii Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Billhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6060.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #3 posted by lumberjack on August 08, 2000 at 15:32:01 PT
the truth is out here!
I take much inspiration from the rhetoric on this forum. I think the fatal blow to the WOD is nearer than we think.peace
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #2 posted by observer on August 08, 2000 at 10:25:02 PT
Fake Rights
 the Justice Department is arguing that doctors who recommend the drug lose their right to prescribe legal medicines.That's because the Justice department has U.S. doctors by their collective huevos: if an MD loses his "right" (oh brother) "to prescribe", then he can kiss his practice goodbye. The "US medical establishment" (and I am guilty of some reification here) has no one but itself to blame. Using the pretext of safety, the medical establishment exchanged our freedom to take whatever substances we choose (a traditional freedom that all Amercian adults enjoyed before the advent of prescrition laws), for the present scheme where "patients" are beholden to doctors ($$$) to write them a prescription for what they need. The paternalistic argument for prescription laws is that "people might hurt themselves." The real reason, some assert, is that it concentrates power and money in the hands of certain people.Physicians must, of course, bear a good deal of the blame for not having done more to stem the tide of anti-narcotic restrictions imposed on them by the therapeutic state. Instead, they have endorsed drug controls and exploited them for their own selfish benefit -- for example, by chairing and participating in various national and international drug commissions which, by the way, have conferences in elegant hotels in interesting cities. The experts did not really care what anti-libertarian policies these bureaucratic-medical commissions endorsed, so long as the patients remained dependent on the medical profession. Thus, for decades, international narcotic commissions composed of physicians labored to restrict both the medical and nonmedical uses of opiates. Now (in May 1990), acting as if this never happened, American Medical News approvingly reports that "the International Narcotic Control Board has joined the World Health Organization in endorsing expanded use of narcotic drugs for treating cancer pain."The mind boggles. we spend more money on medical care than any other people in the world. And that is the result? That we live in a society in which people who, according to doctors, should have no access to narcotics seemingly have unlimited (illegal) access to them, while people who, accordng to doctors, have the most urgent need for narcotics have little or no access to them. Who is at fault? No one. Everyone is a victim, including the physicians, who are concerned that they will lose their licenses or be prosecuted if they prescribe narcotics "in the amounts necessary to treat chronic severe cancer pain."Our Right To Drugs, Thomas Szasz, 1992, pp. 142-143 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0815603339/Cannabisnews/ In Mexico, for example, people can walk into a pharmacy and buy what they need, without a prescription. The citizens of the US, also, had that right at one time.Casting a ballot is an important act, emblematic of our role as citizens. But eating and drinking are much more important acts. If given a choice between the freedom to choose what to ingest and what politician to vote for, few if any would pick the latter. Indeed, why would anyone be so foolish as to sell his natural birthright to consume what he chooses in return for the mess of pottage of being allowed to register his preference for a political candidate? Yet this is precisely the bargain we the American people have made with our government: more useless voting rights in exchange for fewer critical personal rights. The result is that we consider the fiction of self-government a blessed political right, and the reality of self-medication an accursed medical malady. In 1890, less than half of adult Americans had the right to vote. Since then, one class of previously ineligible persons after another has been granted the franchise. Not only blacks and women, as they deserved, but also others with questionable claims to that privilege -- for example, persons unable to speak or read English (or read and write any language). During this period, every one of us -- regardless of age, education, or competence -- has been deprived of his right to substances the government decides to call "dangerous drugs."Yet, ironically, most Americans labor under the mistaken belief that they now enjoy many rights previously available only to a few (partially true only for blacks and women), and remain utterly unaware of the rights they have lost. Moreover, having become used to living in a society that wages a relentless War on Drugs, we have also lost the vocabulary in which to properly articulate and analyze the disastrous social consequences of our own political-economic behavior vis-a-vis drugs. Mesmerized by the mortal dangers of fictitious new diseases such as "chemical dependency" and "substance abuse," we have become diverted from the political perils of our totalitarian-therapeutic efforts at collective self-protection. Our Right To Drugs, Thomas Szasz, 1992 (introduction)http://www.tfy.drugsense.org/szasz2.htm We've exchanged our traditional rights for Orwellian fake "rights." The "right" of an MD to perscribe. (I.e. the "right" of the government to throw adults in jail for taking certain substances. Some great "right", eh?) I'd rather take my chances with no prescription laws. One may always ask a doctor. But with no prescription laws, you don't go to jail for ignoring your doctor and taking a medication you want, anyway.
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #1 posted by Natrous on August 08, 2000 at 09:44:50 PT
Unsafe?
A doctor who recommends the use of marijuana, the attorney said, "has recommended use of a drug that has been found to be unsafe" by Congress and the Food and Drug Administration. He likened it to a lawyer's recommending that a client commit perjury.Right. No doctor anywhere has ever recommended a drug that has been found to be unsafe. No one has ever been perscribed Valium, which is addictive and can kill if taken in large quantaties. No one has ever had a recommendation for Propecia, which can cause birth defects. Right.
[ Post Comment ]

Post Comment


Name: Optional Password: 
E-Mail: 
Subject: 
Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message]
Link URL: 
Link Title: