Pubdate: Sun, 12 Jun 2005
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)
Copyright: 2005 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wisconsinstatejournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506
Author:  James Lileks
Note: James Lileks is a columnist for the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Gonzales v. Raich)

MORAL AUTHORITY JEOPARDIZED BY MEDICAL POT

Let Those Poor Sick Folks Inhale

We now have an answer to the question of whether U.S.  agents should
knock down doors and bat the reefer from the fingers of cancer
patients.  Yes! By all means, yes.  The Supremes have ruled that
federal anti-weed laws must trump individual states' laws on medicinal
marijuana.  So much for the idea that the states are the laboratories
of democracy.

Of course, this doesn't mean they can be the meth labs of
democracy.

But is medical marijuana such a threat? We'll get to that.

First, consider the rationale the court employed: our old catch-all
pal, the interstate commerce clause.  As the ruling notes: "Wickard (a case 
cited as a precedent ) thus establishes that Congress can
regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself 'commercial,'
in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to
regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the
interstate market in that commodity."

I am not a lawyer, which is why the idea of the interstate commerce
clause having jurisdiction over intrastate non-commerce is amusing.
Everything is a matter of interstate commerce, it would seem.

Pity President Bush didn't claim the right to knock over Saddam
Hussein based on the interstate commerce clause; every statist and
big-government advocate would have gotten writer's cramp praising this
novel approach. It's only a matter of time before fast food is
regulated under the clause, since hungry truckers often take sacks of
fries across state lines.  It's the perfect law.  We could use it to
annex Mars.

This case isn't about the efficacy of medical marijuana or even the
legalization of the stuff, but it's difficult not to consider the
ancillary issues.  Some insist that there's no place in the
therapeutic process for illegal drugs.  Why? "Well, uh, because
they're illegal."

Hmm.  Paging Dr.  Tautology; Dr.  Tautology to the dispensary.
Hospitals have been using morphine by the gallon for decades, and you
don't find it at the drugstore next to the corn pads and Band-Aids.
It's very illegal, but its use in hospitals hasn't led to widespread
use in the general society. You don't often read about once-thriving
neighborhoods reduced to ruin by a plague of morphine addicts.

There are ways to keep medical marijuana from getting out into the
general population.  Keep it in suppository form - notoriously hard to
light - and keep the dosage mild.  Compared to the high-power
knock-you-down reefer favored today, Uncle Sam Brand would suffer in
the marketplace.

Yes, yes, once it's accepted by all, some doctors will prescribe it
for anything, from "inability to endure Phish CDs" to "chronically
mellow deficiency." It still won't increase the number of potheads.

Granted, it would diminish the government's moral authority to condemn
cannabis use if it's prescribed for things other than cancer and
glaucoma. But if the government wanted more moral authority, it
wouldn't sue cigarette makers while making more off taxes than the
makers earn per pack.

The drug war will remain - the same grinding stalemate, played out for
the foreseeable future.  The state has no interest in ending it, as it
seems, dare I say, addicted to the power the war grants.

The public isn't in the mood to legalize crack.  But the public, now
and then, realizes that there are some gray areas - all you need to do
is hear a few hundred tales of cancer sufferers finally able to keep
down a meal because they used medicinal marijuana, and you might
believe that the Republic will not founder if we grant them this surcease.

That, however, will take a federal law.

And perhaps that's what it needs.  Perhaps medical marijuana needs
Food and Drug Administration approval - providing that People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals will let them test it on rabbits, that
is.

It may not be conservative by some people's definition to let a sick
person grow some pot in the backyard.  But it does not seem
particularly compassionate to forbid it. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake