Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jun 2005
Source: Muskogee Daily Phoenix (OK)
Copyright: 2005 Muskogee Daily Phoenix
Contact: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3319
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Angel Raich)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

COURT WRONG ON MARIJUANA

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To respond to this editorial, e-mail The Supreme Court got confused when it ruled Monday against medical
marijuana use.

As the Justice Department has been doing for years, the high court is
muddling the war on drugs with fighting ailing people, many of them
seriously ill, whose doctors' say marijuana relieves their pain.

Putting those people in jail or giving them stiff fines won't solve
any of the social ills caused by illegal marijuana use. It sure won't
stop the flood of illegal and dangerous drugs into the United States.

Of course, the marijuana issue is, as the Supreme Court demonstrated,
clouded by legal and illegal drug use in America that has been out of
control for years.

We understand marijuana use can and does pose some
dangers.

But drugs a lot more dangerous than marijuana are used every day by
people who get legitimate prescriptions for them from doctors and have
those prescriptions filled at pharmacies. People with illnesses should
be able to do the same with a doctor's prescription for marijuana or
be able to grow marijuana for their own use.

Of course, a seriously ill California woman growing her own marijuana
is the reason the case of medical marijuana use came before the
Supreme Court this year. But the court should have made allowances for
people suffering from illnesses that their doctors believe can be
helped by marijuana.

The federal government counters, saying no proof exists that marijuana
is effective in treating any ailments. But we say shelves at
pharmacies and groceries are filled with herbal remedies that have no
scientifically proven benefit, and marijuana doesn't appear to be more
dangerous than alcohol or tobacco, drugs the federal government
regulates, and in the case of tobacco, subsidized the cultivation of
for decades.

Finally, some complain the Supreme Court trampled on states rights
with its ruling, which "overrides" the medical marijuana use laws in
10 states.

Certainly Justice Clarence Thomas, who along with Sandra Day O'Connor
and William Rehnquist opposed the decision, exaggerated somewhat when
he said the ruling was so broad it would allow the federal government
to "regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers." Yet
Thomas is correct that the basis of the court's decision was unsound.
For the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said that the
Constitution allows federal regulation of homegrown marijuana as
interstate commerce, which doesn't make sense.

But the question of marijuana use, legal and illegal, should be of
importance to all 50 states, and we must be together on its regulation.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court made the wrong decision in regards to
medical use.
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MAP posted-by: Derek