cannabisnews.com: The Legal Jam





The Legal Jam
Posted by FoM on May 15, 2001 at 12:12:47 PT
By William F. Buckley Jr. on NRO
Source: National Review
It is a big confusing sprawl of a system, but there are those who love it, and it takes lifelong love for our system, after weighing the Supreme Court's decision. The anomalies knock you down, but there is still light…. We have, in California, the principal exfoliate of United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, No 00-151. It is this. If you grow marijuana in California, you can't be arrested by state troopers, but you can be arrested by federal agents. Proposition 215, which carried California by plebiscitary vote in 1996, authorized marijuana under medical prescription. 
The Ninth Circuit Court then handed down a decision denying the right to prosecutors to pull in marijuana distributors whose clients were patients of doctors who authorized marijuana. Last June, Peter McWilliams, the young author, poet, libertine/libertarian, died in medical duress. He had AIDS, and found relief in marijuana; the feds brought him in, stuck him in jail, released him on bail-with-urine-tests to verify that he was not taking marijuana, the only palliative that gave him relief from pain; and he died. One doesn't die from not taking marijuana, any more than one dies from taking it. But what creeps into the case, of course, is the concept of medical necessity. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, which wasn't endorsed by three of the justices, who wrote their own concurring opinion. The reason for their disagreement was Justice Thomas's insistence that marijuana has no unique medical purpose. This statement is dumbfoundingly outrageous to anyone who knows from personal experience that the drug gives unique relief to some sufferers. What Mr. Thomas, and others, correctly did was to acknowledge the authority of Congress as exercised in its Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This Act decreed that marijuana was a Schedule 1 substance, and therefore forbidden for use. The Court's indulgent handling of Congress is a welcome deviation. Yes, Congress said it; yes, Congress has the authority to rule on drugs; no, California distributors may not legally sell the drugs. So where do we go now? That question is politically and constitutionally interesting to residents of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, which have passed laws permissive in orientation on the question of marijuana. And it is of intense medical interest to people suffering from debilitating symptoms of AIDS, epilepsy, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, and chemotherapy. California's attorney general, who backed the Oakland cooperative, regrets that the federal government is standing in the way of "California's historic role as a 'laboratory' for good public policy." That statement was a little unguarded, coming from a spokesman from a state that has served as a laboratory for every kookiness of the past one hundred years; but the question of states' rights is implicitly very much there. Justice Stevens raised the point explicitly, wondering whether the majority opinion showed enough "respect for the sovereign states that comprise our federal union." Thomas replied witheringly to his colleague: "Because federal courts interpret, rather than author, the federal criminal code, we are not at liberty to rewrite it." Correct. But inasmuch as we are talking only about one federal law, easily modifiable, the question of political leadership arises. And here we have a precedent. While governor of Texas, George W. Bush opposed legalizing marijuana for medical use, but deferred to individual states to make their own decision in the matter. "I believe each state can choose," he said in 1999. So then that avenue is open: a congressional modification of existing laws. But another window is there, the medical-necessity question. It is already acknowledged that federal prosecutions of marijuana users who are manifestly beneficiaries of the drug aren't going to appeal to many California jurors. With the result? That there simply won't be any prosecution of individual users. How will they get the proscribed drugs, now that the cooperatives are closed down? That is a silly question. How does anybody who wants pot get it? How did they get booze during Prohibition? Those who enjoy legal theorizing can come up with the argument that to deny someone a pain-reducing or life-enhancing drug is to deny him due process and the right to life. These are airy flights of constitutional theorists on highs, but they do accost the basic question whether Peter McWilliams is a better judge of medical palliatives for his ailment than Congress or the Supreme Court. So it all crowds around our federal system: state laws, state plebiscites, congressional laws, Supreme Court interpretations, constitutional epiphanies. It is very red, white, and blue and, we repeat, there are those who love it. Note: If you grow marijuana in California, you can't be arrested by state troopers, but you can be arrested by federal agents.Source National Review (US) Author: William F. Buckley Jr.Published: May 15, 2001 Copyright: 2001 National Review Email: letters nationalreview.com Website: http://www.nationalreview.com/ Forum: http://www.nationalreview.com/forum/forum.shtmlRelated Articles & Web Site:Peter McWilliam's Memorial Pagehttp://www.freedomtoexhale.com/Peterm.htmSupreme Court's Reefer Madness http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9723.shtmlLet Them Eat Chemo - Salon.comhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9722.shtmlA Nauseating Ruling - Salon.comhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9715.shtml 
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Comment #4 posted by Dan B on May 15, 2001 at 23:04:12 PT:
Correction
Last June, Peter McWilliams, the young author, poet, libertine/libertarian, died in medical duress. He had AIDS, and found relief in marijuana; the feds brought him in, stuck him in jail, released him on bail-with-urine-tests to verify that he was not taking marijuana, the only palliative that gave him relief from pain; and he died. One doesn't die from not taking marijuana, any more than one dies from taking it. But what creeps into the case, of course, is the concept of medical necessity.I appreciate William F. Buckley's stance against prohibition in general and in favor of medical marijuana in particular, but I have to disagree with the above statement. Peter McWilliams was not using marijuana as "a palliative that gave him relief from pain," but as an anti-emetic that gave him relief from nausea. He died by choking on his own vomit; therefore, there is a direct connection between him not being allowed to use an effective anti-emetic (marijuana) and his death. He died for lack of medical marijuana, and there is no way anyone can logically conclude otherwise.Okay, I'm done venting.Peace.Dan B
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Comment #3 posted by Robert Schwartz on May 15, 2001 at 22:22:32 PT:
Define your terms
There’s a funny thing about language. Definitions are fungible. Therefore, it makes sense to “define your terms” if you wish to communicate effectively. Governments go to great lengths to avoid this at all costs. “Depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” to quote a former member of our government, but this is only a recent and explicit example of language fungibility. Effective communication is not always in the government’s interest, and providing wiggle room usually is.So, with this in mind, let us examine the Supreme Court’s decision on Medical Marijuana. The language of the Controlled Substances Act states clearly: "no currently accepted medical use", so one may very well ask: “when was the act written and is ‘currently’ still valid?” “The Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, is the legal foundation of the government's fight against the abuse of drugs and other substances.” Cut and pasted right off the DEA’s own website, we find that 'currently' refers to information available in the 1970’s. Now, I would agree that in 1970 we only had about 5000 years of documented efficacy available on this medication, but that isn’t the point of this little essay, now is it? There is much more evidence now that marijuana is an effective medicine, and the government is scrambling to warn about the dangers of smoking and pretending that vaporizers are figments of imagination, or certainly, not worth mentioning, when they report that marijuana is effective, but dangerous, and obviously, we can’t let it out of the bag.The Supreme Court could have asked is ‘currently’ still applicable, when the Act was written more than 30 years ago, but they didn’t. They chose, instead, to affirm the Controlled Substances Act as written. This leads to another language conundrum. The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws. Laws are constructs of language. Language is composed of words. Words have definitions. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines ‘interstate’:Main Entry: 1in·ter·statePronunciation: "in-t&r-'stAtFunction: adjectiveDate: 1844: of, connecting, or existing between two or more states especially of the U.S. Now, I bring this up because Congress has specifically enumerated powers. Drug legislation is not one of them, but the regulation of Interstate Commerce is. In fact, the entire edifice of the CSA is built on the Interstate Commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. So, in effect, the Congress only has jurisdiction to regulate commerce between, and not within, states . So, if a California patient, grows, or buys locally, it’s not their business. Now, I’m not going to say we should dispose of lawyers…but, we should, at least, hold them to the same definitions that the rest of us use.
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Comment #2 posted by wades on May 15, 2001 at 19:28:08 PT
dddd
....have some 20 year old greenhorn,who got his/her credentials from a McCzar correspondence course,,tryin to tell your 50 year old veteran hippie ass about how to not smoke weed....it aint pretty....ROTFL
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Comment #1 posted by dddd on May 15, 2001 at 15:20:40 PT
Mr Buckley
...I think there is something charming about Bill Buckleysexcruciating eloquence. He is mistaken in thinking a state trooper cannot arrest youfor Marijuana....I guess if they caught Mr Buckley with some,they might cut him loose,,or better yet,how bout a couple ofyears of coerced treatment....yup.......nuthin like a nice coercedtreatment program to save you from that weed habit....Boy,I wouldnot want to be one of the first gineau pigs to go through the freshlyopened treatment places,,staffed with rookies,and college students......have some 20 year old greenhorn,who got his/her credentials froma McCzar correspondence course,,tryin to tell your 50 year old veteranhippie ass about how to not smoke weed....it aint pretty....dddd
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