Pubdate: Sun, 22 Mar 2009
Source: Ventura County Star (CA)
Copyright: 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co.
Contact:  http://www.venturacountystar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

SANE POLICY AT LONG LAST

Relief For Medicinal-Pot Users

Finally, there is sanity in federal policy regarding states that have 
legalized medicinal marijuana, including California.

Proposition 215 -- allowing the use of marijuana for medical 
purposes, if recommended by a physician -- passed overwhelmingly in 
California 13 years ago. Despite that, the federal government 
continued to prosecute medicinal-marijuana users and dispensary 
groups. It has been able to do so because federal law outlawing 
marijuana cultivation and use supersedes state law. The conflicting 
laws have created a legal Catch-22 that defies logic.

Until now.

Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the U.S. Justice 
Department will not prosecute medicinal-marijuana dispensaries that 
follow the laws of the state in which they operate. Although Barack 
Obama indicated during his campaign that he would change the old 
policy, after his inauguration, the Drug Enforcement Agency was still 
raiding medical-marijuana dispensaries in states where they were 
legal. Now, we presume the DEA has gotten the memo.

We hope to hear no more stories of sick people with cancer, eating 
disorders, glaucoma, AIDS and other illnesses being prosecuted for 
using marijuana recommended by their physicians.

As a result of 1970s drug-war policies, marijuana was listed as a 
schedule 1 drug, meaning it was deemed to have no medical use. That, 
despite the fact that cocaine is listed as a schedule 2 drug, 
available by prescription. The schedule 1 designation for marijuana 
remained even after a yearlong study in 1999 by the Institute of 
Medicine at the National Academy of Science concluded marijuana's 
effectiveness in treating certain ailments, including nausea and 
vomiting caused by chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Last year, the American College of Physicians -- a group of 124,000 
doctors of internal medicine -- called on the federal government to 
ease its ban on medical marijuana.

State officials tried to finesse the state-federal law conflict in 
last year's "Guidelines for the Security and Non-Diversion of 
Marijuana Grown for Medical Use." In the 11-page document, California 
Attorney General Jerry Brown wrote: Neither Proposition 215 nor the 
state's 2004 Medical Marijuana Program conflict with the federal 
Controlled Substances Act because "in adopting these laws, California 
did not 'legalize' medical marijuana, but instead exercised the 
state's reserved powers to not punish certain marijuana offenses 
under state law when a physician has recommended its use to treat a 
serious medical condition."

Not even the U.S. Supreme Court could speak straight in its 6-3 vote 
in 2005 that state medical marijuana laws do not protect people from 
federal prosecution. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the court 
based its decision solely on the technical interstate commerce aspect 
of the case and not the medical-necessity defense. The court punted, 
saying the issue belongs before Congress.

So, after 13 years of this ongoing dilemma, spanning the Clinton and 
Bush administrations, someone at the federal level at last says 
something that doesn't need legal gymnastics to grasp:

Sick people in states that have legalized medicinal marijuana need 
not fear being prosecuted or jailed for seeking treatment recommended 
by their doctors.

Now that Attorney General Holder has articulated this welcome policy, 
we hope transplant hospital administrators get the message and don't 
kick any more patients off their transplant lists just because they 
used medical marijuana.

Ridiculous laws can have ridiculous and tragic results.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom