You have probably heard about this Monday morning's Supreme Court hearing on the Raich v. Ashcroft medical mar1juana case, in which patients have challenged the federal government's right to ban medical mar1juana. Drug War Chronicle editor Phillip S. Smith attended this historic event, and we are pleased to bring you the following special report. Though a number of media outlets have already written off the plaintiffs' chances for success -- for example, "High Court Appears Hesitant to Endorse Medical mar1juana" by the Associated Press -- our impression was that the Justices asked tough questions of both sides. Special to Drug War Chronicle: Supreme Court Hears Raich v. Ashcroft Case Monday Morning Medical mar1juana supporters began lining up outside the US Supreme Court at 4:00am Monday morning, vying for a chance to be present as the justices heard oral arguments in a case that could force the federal government to leave medical mar1juana patients alone in states where it is legal. The case, Ashcroft v. Raich, pits two California medical mar1juana patients against the Justice Department. It also pits the doctrine of states' rights against the federal government's use of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause to crack down on medical mar1juana users despite state laws okaying their use. Angel Raich, who suffers from a variety of life-threatening disorders, and Diane Monson, a chronic back pain sufferer, filed suit in federal court in California after the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Monson's home in 2001 and seized her mar1juana plants, which she was growing for medical purposes in compliance with California law. The pair filed for injunctive relief seeking to permanently bar the federal government from raiding, arresting, seizing the property of, or otherwise harassing law-abiding medical mar1juana patients. They argued that because their cultivation and use are non-commercial and take place within a single state, the federal government has no constitutional standing to stop them. Raich, Monson & supporters following the victory in the 9th Circuit (courtesy angeljustice.org) Raich and Monson lost in federal district court in October 2002, but that decision was overturned by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last December. That decision meant that medical mar1juana patients in the states comprising the 9th Circuit could now use and cultivate the plant without fear of the feds. The Justice Department of Attorney General John Ashcroft appealed the 9th Circuit's ruling. Written briefs in the potentially landmark case were submitted months ago, and today the Supreme Court heard an hour's worth of oral arguments from acting Solicitor General Paul Clement for the Bush administration and Boston attorney Randy Barnett for Raich and Monson. A favorable decision from the high court would extend those protections nationwide. A decision to overturn the 9th Circuit would merely mean that the DEA could once again conduct raids against medical mar1juana patients and providers, but would not overturn the state laws approving medical mar1juana. As the chill pre-dawn darkness turned to sunlight outside the Supreme Court, the line of hopeful spectators grew steadily longer. First in line was attorney Eric Sterling, head of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, followed by Jeff Jones, whose Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative lost its medical necessity case in the same court three years ago. Following them were a mixed bag of wildly-speculating activist law students, medical mar1juana supporters, and Supreme Court groupies, all very grateful for the hot coffee provided by Steph Sherer and Stacey Swimme of the medical mar1juana defense group Americans for Safe Access. By 9:00am, when the doors to the court were opened, the crowd of hopefuls had grown to a couple of hundred -- with only 50 guaranteed access to the actual chamber. By then, more movement bigwigs had made appearances, as the leaders of the country's two largest mar1juana reform groups, outgoing NORML head Keith Stroup and mar1juana Policy Project head Rob Kampia, showed up to hear the arguments. Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement led off the session, asserting that mar1juana had no accepted medical use, that someone growing pot non-commercially for his own use in his own state was subject to the jurisdiction provided by the Interstate Commerce Clause, that a restrictive reading of the Commerce Clause would impeded the federal government's ability to set national policy on any number of issues, and, furthermore, that a ruling allowing medical use unfettered by federal law would open the door to similar arguments regarding recreational use. But in typical Supreme Court fashion, Clement barely got started before being peppered by rapid fire questions from the justices -- all except Justice Clarence Thomas, who rarely asks questions and who used the hearing today to alternately loll about in his chair or read from a book. Wouldn't the non-commercial use of homegrown pot reduce the illicit interstate commerce in the herb? asked a mischievous Justice Scalia. Maybe so, Clement reluctantly responded, but for him the important point was that "any island of non-regulation would frustrate the regime created by Congress." After a half-hour of back and forth, it was time for Raich attorney Randy Barnett. The Interstate Commerce Clause does not apply to Raich and Monson, he argued, because "their medical mar1juana use and cultivation is non-economic and wholly intrastate." But the justices, displaying evident concern about the ramifications of restricting the federal government's ability to use the Interstate Commerce Clause, shot question after question at Barnett about whether growing even pot that never hit the market or left the state was an economic activity and thus subject to regulation under the clause. The argument over the Interstate Commerce Clause pits earlier Supreme Court decisions against each other. In a 1942 ruling, the court held that a farmer who grew wheat for consumption on his own property was subject to the clause because the wheat he grew affected the overall market. But in a pair of mid-1990s rulings by the current court, the court struck down federal laws regarding firearms near public schools and violence against women, suggesting that the clause should be interpreted more strictly. With ramifications extending far beyond the issue of medical mar1juana, the Raich case drew a high number of friend of the court briefs and illustrated the ideological flexibility of all concerned. Conservative Republican congressmen led by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) submitted a brief calling for increased federal power, while the southern states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi submitted one supporting Raich as upholding states' rights. Justice Breyer suggested that seeking a solution in the courts was premature. "I would think they would go to the FDA," to get mar1juana rescheduled, he suggested. But the FDA has been consistently unresponsive to repeated efforts to get the herb rescheduled, as Barnett tartly pointed out. "I would suggest you read the brief from Rick Doblin on FDA obstructionism," he said. "What about other states without medical mar1juana laws?" asked Justice Ginsberg. "Could Congress regulate medical mar1juana there?" "The federal government could not prosecute medical mar1juana users anywhere," responded Barnett. "What about growing heroin or cocaine?" asked Justice Breyer. "It all depends on the regulatory scheme," Barnett offered. "What impact would a favorable ruling have on the mar1juana market overall?" asked Justice Stevens. "The only impact would be a slight price reduction," Barnett suggested. While the justices demonstrated concern about the ramifications of a positive decision, Angel Raich herself clearly articulated the ramifications of a negative one. Appearing at a post-hearing press conference on the Supreme Court steps as a lonely handful of anti-medical mar1juana activists held up signs warning that smoked medicine is not medicine and that tens of thousands of kids are in drug treatment for mar1juana, Raich made clear what this case is all about. "If they decide I have the right to live, I will spend the rest of the life with my family," she said. "On the other hand, if they decide against me, they will be handing me a death sentence." Supporters adjourned to a press conference at the ACLU's DC home the Stewart Mott House, and have now begun the wait.
Can anyone point to studies that conclusively show that mar1juana has any medicinal purpose? To me, this whole movement is just the potheads/druggies trying to get a foot in the door, then take advantage of the system. This can only lead to the spread of the drug. I have personally seen pot ruin people's lives by stripping away their motivation. This is just paving the way for it, unless the judges step in and do the right thing.
Let's start this lesson, rookie, with a DEA petition from 1982. The description of the case reads as follows: "This is the ruling of the DEA's own Chief Administrative Law Judge which arose as the result of a suit against the Federal Government, seeking to reschedule mar1juana for medical purposes. Before issuing his ruling, Judge Francis Young heard two years of testimony from both sides of the issue and accumulated fifteen volumes of research. This was undoubtedly the most comprehensive study of medical mar1juana done to date. Judge Young concluded that mar1juana was one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man, that it had never caused a single human death, and that the Federal Government's policy toward medical mar1juana is 'unconscionable.'" The complete text of the findings is here: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/YOUNG/index.html Next, we will move on to a UK House of Lords report... http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/hlords/15101.htm The next link leads to full text of the report issued by the National Academy of Sciences - Institute of Medicine, as ordered by the US Director of National Drug Control Policy. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/iom/IOMReport.htm In addition, the Journal of the American Medical Association has literally dozens of articles regarding theraputic use of mar1juana, including an articles from the Institute of Medicine directly calling for thorough studies to be completed, a call which has been ignored and obstructed by the DEA and FDA despite the fact that there are patients who now receive mar1juana from the US government. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/search?fulltext=mar1juana&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=GO That should be enough reading material to keep you busy for quite some time. I suppose it is WAY too much to expect that you will actually READ any of it, but the answer to your question is a definitive YES, there are plenty of studies which have found medicinal value in smoked mar1juana. The AMA (American Medical Association) has called for rescheduling of marijauna so that studies can be done in a scientific way, rather than the innuendo, misinformation, and outright lies now used by the government.
To me this seems much more of a state's rights issue than an argument about the overall legality of mar1juana or its medical applications. This is the Fed. regulating the medical practices of a state through criminal law.
I'm no lawyer, but how the hell does the federal govt use a interstate commerce law to regulate something that is grown and consumed without any sale entirely on someone's private property?
When are our elected officials going to stop legislating their version of morality and start fixing the real problems this country is facing??
Methinks the "interstate commerce" clause is now meaningless. It appear it is invoked when it supports the Supremes' cause and ignored otherwise.
Exactly, and this is why the Supreme Court can hear it. If it was just about the facts of the California law and not a constitutional issue, they wouldn't touch it.
where ya been?? that's been argued for years now, mostly by people on the other side of the fence from you politically. that's what bothers me about this...i believe it was Scalia that wrote a freaking great opinion in a case called Lopez which challenged the legislatures' passage of some gun control based on some tangential relationship to interstate commerce...it was like, guns lead to crime...crime leads to all kinds of problems that affect the economy...thus interstate commerce was affected..so we have the right to make these laws. Scalia (again, I think it was Scalia) tore that crap apart. Basically said if you're gonna water down the interstate commerce clause like that, then you can throw out the whole Constitution with it, because there's no limits to Congressional power. Now it appears that Scalia and the other conservative justices are gonna use an argument exactly across the fence from it to support their political purposes. That's troublesome to me. The New Deal era court made the interstate commerce clause virtually meaningless...it's only recently come back into vogue as something we should actually give pause for.
this is EXACTLY the situation that the liberal court created in the New Deal era. literally!!! exactly. the court basically said, in a case whose name I can't recall, that growing your own food on your own property and consuming it affected interstate commerce because if you did that you would NOT go out and buy from markets or other farmers. this is how far interstate commerce has been stretched. this is why conservatives for years have argued against judicial activism...but apparently they're part of the problem now, too.
Great point. I wonder if this will affect how the Fed. and States regulates other medical procedures.
With the glaring exception of the Florida voting intervention in 2000, this Supreme Court has been very good at respecting states rights. It would be amazing to me if they reversed trend here.
Sanity's AWOL in war on drugs BY SIDNEY ZION New York Daily News (KRT) - The latest battle in the great War on Drugs showed up in the Supreme Court on Monday, with the feds arguing that if sick or dying people are allowed to use homegrown mar1juana for their pain, the price on the streets will go down. In the logic of the war department, this would have a terrible impact on interstate commerce, where, presumably, Congress has an interest in promoting the sale of mar1juana. If this strikes you as crazy, it's because you don't understand the law, the necessary reach of a government that is grounded on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. We are talking now of the stuff of lawyers and judges, who, when it comes to drugs, display no immunity from going AWOL from reality. First, the facts of the two cases out of California that the top court heard this week. One involved a woman with inoperable brain cancer, the other a woman whose severe back spasms require mar1juana. By referendum, California voters passed a law permitting the use of mar1juana under a doctor's order to relieve a variety of medical ailments. Nine other states followed suit. The federal drug enforcers answered by busting both women. The U.S. Court of Appeals in California ruled for them on the grounds their conduct did not fall within Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce because this had nothing to do with any kind of commerce, much less interstate. You might think the government would let cases like this pass or at least show benign neglect. We're not talking about legalization of narcotics here, just medicalization, just humanity. But the War on Drugs has no interest in such sentimentality. This war is 90 years old with nothing to show but failure, combined with rampant corruption. It doesn't matter. The more we lose, the more we spend. In the Supreme Court arguments, the government estimated that the mar1juana market alone accounts for $10.5 billion a year - then asked the court to knock out California's law in the name of helping the war succeed! The argument that homegrown pot had an impact on interstate commerce rests on a 1942 Supreme Court decision that allowed the feds to punish a wheat grower for withholding his home consumption from the Agriculture Department's regulations. The reason: If he hadn't used it for his family, he'd have bought it in the marketplace, thus raising the price of wheat, which Congress wanted. Justice Anthony Scalia said he had always thought that case was a joke, but now he opined that it was the law. Scalia, who votes for states' rights except when he doesn't - see Gore v. Bush - said that the old wheat ruling looked right to him now. Students of Scalia, the sharpest man on the court, might have thought he could separate the wheat from the weed. But the politics of drugs has a way with the finest of minds, and according to reporters covering the court, the majority is going to overturn the California law. I asked Yale Kamisar, the legendary law professor at Michigan Law School, what he thought about this apparent reliance by the court on the ancient wheat decision. "I look at it this way," he said. "If they're right, the Congress can ban breast-feeding because it has an economic impact on the interstate sale of milk." http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/258208p-220939c.html
