Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) Copyright: 2005 Richmond Newspapers Inc. Contact: http://www.timesdispatch.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365 Note: From Wire and Staff Reports Note: Staff writer A. J. Hostetler contributed to this report. Cited: Gonzales v. Raich http://www.angeljustice.org Cited: Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Angel Raich) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John) MEDICAL POT USERS CAN BE CHARGED Ruling Doesn't Abolish Laws in 10 States, but Allows Federal Arrests WASHINGTON - People who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it to ease pain can be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, overriding medical-marijuana statutes in 10 states. The court's 6-3 decision was filled with sympathy for two seriously ill California women who brought the case, but the majority agreed that federal agents may arrest even sick people who use the drug as well as the people who grow pot for them. Justice John Paul Stevens, an 85-year-old cancer survivor, said the court was not passing judgment on the potential medical benefits of marijuana, and he noted "the troubling facts" in the case. However, he said the Constitution allows federal regulation of homegrown marijuana as interstate commerce. In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined by fellow states' rights advocates Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, said the court's "overreaching stifles an express choice by some states, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently." Thomas said the ruling was so broad "the federal government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states." The ruling does not strike down California's law, or similar ones in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. However, it may hurt efforts to pass laws in other states because the federal government's prosecution authority trumps states' wishes. Since 1979, Virginia law has technically permitted possession or distribution of marijuana for medical purposes, if the patient has a valid prescription. Few, if any, Virginia doctors have prescribed marijuana for their cancer and glaucoma patients as there is no mechanism for dispensing it. The law was enacted at a time when supporters expected the federal restrictions to be relaxed. The Bush administration has taken a hard stand against state medical-marijuana laws, but it was unclear how it would respond to the new prosecutorial power. Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki would not say whether prosecutors would pursue cases against individual users. The women who brought the case expressed defiance. "I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I don't really have a choice but to, because if I stop using cannabis, I would die," said Angel Raich of Oakland, Calif., who suffers from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. She says she smokes marijuana every few hours. Diane Monson, an accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants. "I'm going to have to be prepared to be arrested," she said. The director of national drug-control policy, John Walters, defended the government's ban. "Science and research have not determined that smoking marijuana is safe or effective," he said. California's law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Monson and Raich contend that traditional medicines do not provide the relief that marijuana does. California has been the battleground state for medical marijuana. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in a California case that the federal government could prosecute distributors despite their claim that the activity was protected by medical necessity. Two years later the justices rejected a Bush administration appeal that sought power to punish doctors for recommending the drug to sick patients. That case, too, was from California. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said yesterday that "people shouldn't panic. . . . There aren't going to be many changes." Local and state officers handle nearly all marijuana prosecutions and must still follow any state laws that protect patients. "I think it would look bad if the federal government focused its prosecution authority on a sick person," said Daniel Abrahamson of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group working to end the war on drugs. "Individual patients growing for their own purposes have not been the targets of the federal authorities. We hope that it stays that way." Congress could be the next stop for the debate, but even medical-marijuana supporters say it is unlikely Congress would pass a law allowing physicians to prescribe the drug. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake