Pubdate: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 Source: Medford Mail Tribune (OR) Copyright: 2003 The Mail Tribune Contact: http://www.mailtribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/642 MARIJUANA DEBATE NOT OVER The 9th Circuit's Ruling Isn't The Last Word On The Constitutional Issue Tuesday's federal Appeals Court ruling gives some hope to chronically ill people using marijuana for nausea and pain relief. But it' s not the first salvo fired in the battle over medical marijuana and it won't be the last. California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is widely regarded as the nation's most liberal. And even so, the three judges who ruled on the case split 2-1. The issue in the case is whether the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 takes precedence over nine state laws passed in recent years that legalize the possession and use of marijuana for strictly limited medical purposes. The U.S. Justice Department argues that states have no power to overrule the federal law, and therefore federal drug authorities can prosecute people for doing something their states have legalized. The appeals panel disagreed. The judges drew a distinction between criminal drug trafficking and medical marijuana use. As long as the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes, they said, prosecuting users for drug trafficking is unconstitutional. The ruling relies on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce and to overrule state laws in the process. The Commerce Clause has been invoked countless times over the years to justify exercising federal power; in this case, a court has used it to overrule that power. Whether this ruling will stand for long is anyone's guess. In any case, the 9th Circuit has no jurisdiction over Maine or Colorado, two of the nine medical-marijuana states. Unless the Supreme Court weighs in on the issue, the debate over medical marijuana and federal drug-enforcement power will only be resolved if Congress acts. Certainly no one envisioned state laws permitting marijuana use for medical purposes when the Controlled Substances Act was adopted more than three decades ago. We have consistently supported the right of Oregon voters to decide this issue for themselves. We continue to view the Justice Department's intransigence on this issue as a colossal waste of federal law enforcement resources that could be better spent going after criminal trafficking of far more dangerous drugs. Not So Far After All The stories and pictures in Wednesday's paper were evidence of how far we've come in 100 years - and a reminder that, in the 21st century, flight is still not always a sure thing. The top photo on page 3B showed a replica of the "Wright flyer," built at the turn of the century by Wilbur and Orville Wright and flown for the first time on Dec. 17, 1903. The plane was pictured with the edge of a wing in a large puddle of water. The weather - something humankind has yet to master - made things tough on Dec. 17, 2003, at Kill Devil Hills, N.C. The photo below showed a rocket plane privately developed for manned suborbital space flights. It broke the sound barrier Wednesday during its first powered flight. But the supersonic achievement was marred by a partial landing gear collapse that caused SpaceShipOne to veer off a Mojave Airport runway. In these days of routine air travel across the globe, it's easy to take technology for granted. As anyone can tell you who has found themselves stuck in an airport because a plane had mechanical trouble.