Medical pot laws survive challenge High court rejects administration’s appeal aimed at state laws ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for state laws allowing ill patients to smoke mar1juana if a doctor recommends it. JUSTICES TURNED down the Bush administration’s request to consider whether the federal government can punish doctors for recommending or perhaps even talking about the benefits of the drug to sick patients. An appeals court said they cannot be punished. Nine states have laws legalizing mar1juana for patients with physician recommendations or prescriptions: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, and 35 states have passed legislation recognizing mar1juana’s medicinal value. But federal law bans the use of pot under any circumstances. The case gave the court an opportunity to review its second medical mar1juana case in two years. The last one involved cannabis clubs. FREE SPEECH VS. ANTI-DRUG POWERS This one presented a more difficult issue, pitting free-speech rights of doctors against government power to keep physicians from encouraging illegal drug use. A ruling for the administration would have made the state medical mar1juana laws unusable. Some California doctors and patients, in filings at the Supreme Court, compared doctor information on pot to physicians’ advice on “red wine to reduce the risk of heart disease, Vitamin C, acupuncture or chicken soup.” The administration, which has taken a hard stand against the state laws, argued that public heath - not the First Amendment free-speech rights of doctors or patients — was at stake. “The provision of medical advice — whether it be that the patient take aspirin or vitamin C, lose or gain weight, exercise or rest, smoke or refrain from smoking mar1juana — is not pure speech. It is the conduct of the practice of medicine. As such, it is subject to reasonable regulation,” Solicitor General Theodore Olson said in court papers. In states with medical mar1juana laws, doctors can give written or oral recommendations on mar1juana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses. Some people had expected the Supreme Court to step into the case, which comes from California, the battleground over the subject. PROSECUTOR CHALLENGED POLICY Keith Vines, a prosecutor in San Francisco who used mar1juana to overcome HIV-related illnesses, was among those who challenged a policy, put in place during the Clinton administration. That policy requires the revocation of federal prescription licenses of doctors who recommend mar1juana. “If the government is zipping them up, and we’re not being told about options, that’s negligence,” Vines said. Policy supporters contend that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration must be allowed to protect the public. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that physicians should be able to speak candidly with patients without fear of government sanctions, but they can be punished if they actually help patients obtain the drug. Doctors fear losing their prescription-writing powers, which would put them out of business. “It’s taking the culture war issue of the moment and using it in a way that could undermine the First Amendment, medical profession, and patients’ well-being,” said Graham Boyd, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing patients, doctors, and other groups. The case is Walters v. Conant, 03-40. -------- I think with the Supreme Court recognizing mar1juana’s medicinal value, that pot now HAS to be removed as a Schedule I controlled substance. Drugs that are Schedule I are drugs that are deemed to have no medicinal value and clearly that has changed.
I second that prediction and lemme jump on this first. This is a major victory against the evil drug war and the ridiculous arrests of poor cancer and AIDS patients whose only means of appetite and happiness come from the noble herb.
What do medical doctors know? Drug Czars like the brilliant Lee Brown have all the answers of course!
Not really a big step toward legalization, IMO. This doesn't make it legal for patients to smoke it, only for doctors to talk about it's benefits. It was rediculous to try to make it a crime for doctors to talk about the effects of a drug in the first place. I am for legalization (though I don't think it should stop at mar1juana), but it is not a voting issue for me, and I am even more in favor of prosecuting and handing down harsh sentences while the laws are still on the books.
Fantastic news. More people will get the treatment they need now. Glad to see science and common sense are starting to gain a foothold against illogical rhetoric and scare tactics.
does not compute.......? I think it's great news! And so does my mom (who wouldn't be alive if not for pot during her cancer therapy).
Baby steps are better than no steps at all. It's just nice to see Bush defeated in something. A preview of 04.
There are three basic ideas here. Let me know where I am losing you. 1. I think that drug laws are a huge suck on our economy. If people want to use drugs, I see no reason not to let them. Ideally, the money that people pay in taxes to feed the war on drugs can be returned to them. Heck, maybe even more as heavy taxes can be levied on the drugs. 2. I don't use illicit drugs and have no desire to. That being the case, it doesn't have a tremendous effect on me personally, because as much as I would like the above scenario to be true, we all know that the money would not be returned to the taxpayers, but instead would just be spent on something else. Something that doesn't do a whole helluva lot for me. I tend not to focus on things which will have a marginal effect on me and other law abiding citizens like me when I am choosing who to vote for. 3. Our society is based on the rule of law. I don't think it is a good idea for people to only obey the laws they happen to like and/or agree with.
WHOA..... If number 1 comes true, then your chances of number 2 happening drastically increase. Now from my perspective, I don't particularly care about pot being legal or not. But I have had friends and known others that have lost their lives to drugs. I knew a few kids in high school that committed suicide because they had a bad trip, got into car accidents, and I even knew of a guy that broke into a house (a longtime friend of his), robbed the place to get drug money and his friend, the guy he robbed, had to put his longtime chilhood buddy in jail. You don't have to use drugs to have it affect you, and affect you in a big way.
HOOP-T, You are assuming that the number of drug users will drastically increase with legalization. I am not at all certain that is the case. Heck, just ask andymoon. Does the legalization of drugs have a chance to have a profound effect on my life? Sure. That is by no means guaranteed, or even likely, and is much less likely to have an effect than many other issues.
You are assuming what I am assuming!? Certainly the number of drug users would increase with the legalization of it, although I am not sure if it would be drastic or to what degree. I mean, that's pretty easy to understand. And to add to the increase of drug users, the dealers selling and competition to sell them would also likely increase. Since the demand would likely rise, so would supply....and so on and so on. On a side note, I find it rather awful that you are ok with legalizing drugs because it doesn't affect you personally. Sometimes you have to look outside the world that is YOU. But I guess it takes an experience or two to have that happen.
Cant....resist....posting....any....more....LOL You are correct that there are a plethora of problems inherent in drug use. In addition, those problems are exacerbated when the people using drugs do not have the physical or mental capacity to deal with those problems. The number one priority should be getting drugs out of the hands of children so that we can focus our prevention efforts and actually reduce overall drug use. Regulation of the industry would not cause an increase in actual drug use, but we would see an increase in reported drug use much like we saw after alcohol prohibition ended. Over time, using education and treatment, we could reduce overall drug use. If you are interested in what I mean by regulation, look here: http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63243 What you need to consider is that the problems that you associate with "drugs" are actually caused by prohibition. We already have laws that deal with theft, DUI, robbery, and violent crimes. If someone commits a crime as a result of their drug use, they should be put into a treatment facility either before or after they pay the criminal justice system for their crime. We can solve the problems associated with drug use and abuse, we just have to be smart about it.
Actually, it is more likely that REPORTED drug use would go up in the short term as drug users would be more comfortable answering questions about drug use honestly. In the long term, though, if we reduce the availability of drugs to kids, we will reduce overall drug use dramatically. There won't be any "drug dealers" if we regulate the industry such that only the government and legitimate businesses are in charge of distributing these substances. Since the people distributing are the same ones charged with seeing that usage decreases, we won't have problems with "gateway drugs" and the like. That's OK, I think it is absolutely horrifying that so many people are OK with the HUGE problems caused by prohibition despite the total lack of any type of positive results generated by this wasteful, expensive, corrupt policy. Whether you know it or not, prohibition has many more negative consequences than drugs ever have. We can solve the problems that come with drug use and abuse, the problems inherent in prohibition are much worse. We can make progress in the war on drugs if we use our heads.
Legalize. All of it. I have a huge problem with their being laws telling me what I can and cannot do to my own body. Its my body, keep your damn laws and/or morals off of it. That said, the only illegal drug I've ever used was pot. I never had the desire to try anything else. Ever. I remember in junior high the two hardest things to get a hold of were the legal, regulated, and taxed drugs of alcohol and tobacco. All of the illegal stuff was cake. You tax it and regulate it, you control it. Take the power out of the hands of the bad guys, i.e. drug dealers, cartels, etc. Stop this stupid "war" on drugs. Its nothing but flushing money down the toilet. Wake up, America. Legalize.
Okay, I'm tired of all this BS involving legalization of pot. Normally, I'd be very vocal on this one, but I'd be preaching to a bunch of A) the converted, or B) people that won't budge due to deeply-rooted ignorance. This discussion will go nowhere, so there's no sense debating it.
Just to state my opinion that there's no sense in "debating" this topic. It's a dead topic, so I was trying to tell everyone else here that they're gonna get nowhere with posting their ideas. People have heard all of these points many times before; and in my experience, they never change their stance on this issue no matter how many stats and studies and facts you cite. Just trying to save people time and stress. But, so as not to demean Maynard by saying his thread is gonna get us nowhere, I'll say that I'm all for the legalization of mar1juana and I like to see people that feel the same way as I do, so thanks for giving me an outlet to see legalization support and thanks for the article.
