Iowa City, Ia. - When Sen. John Kerry campaigned on the University of Iowa campus last week, he intended to talk about financial aid and rising tuition costs with local students. But one student had something different in mind. U of I senior George Pappas approached Kerry in front of about 50 people to ask the Massachusetts senator's stance on medical marijuana. Kerry told Pappas that as president, he would put a stop to the Bush administration's raiding of medical marijuana patients, adding that he favors more research on the issue. [continues 1016 words]
Your Oct. 17 editorial supporting the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes fails to address a number of concerns. Apart from the debatable issue as to whether marijuana is the most effective way for patients with various illnesses to control pain or suffering, there are also questions of quality control, dosage and supply. How are quality and dosage determined or controlled when using a substance such as marijuana for pain or symptoms such as nausea? Dosage and substance quality would seem to be of particular importance in the case of individuals who may not be suffering from a painful, terminal illness but who may be prescribed marijuana for an indeterminate or protracted duration, as in the treatment of glaucoma. [continues 213 words]
For doctors who want to discuss using medical marijuana with their patients, the line between advice and advocacy remains almost as blurred as it was before a recent court decision guaranteed a physician's right to address the issue openly. Some doctors are relieved that the United States Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision two weeks ago that barred the federal government from punishing doctors who advised patients that marijuana might ease some symptoms. But some doctors are also perplexed, and even inhibited, by part of the underlying court decision at the center of the case. That decision essentially affirms the federal government's right to hold physicians accountable if they actually take steps to help patients obtain marijuana. [continues 1360 words]
Pro-medicinal marijuana groups are cheering over the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that physicians can discuss the treatment option of medicinal marijuana with their patients without risking prosecution. "The Supreme Court's decision not to take the case is probably the most significant court action on the medical marijuana front in two decades," said Robert Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a lobbying group whose goal is to replace marijuana prohibition with a regulated system. [continues 584 words]
Federal, State Pot Laws Need To Jibe Americans wondering if they still live in the land of liberty have only to ponder the reinstatement of a right most probably didn't know was threatened: the right to talk to one's doctor freely and openly, about anything. Even marijuana. Last week, by declining to hear a Bush administration appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that doctors have a constitutional right to advise ill patients about the benefits of marijuana. [continues 380 words]
No medical marijuana activist could have foreseen that Proposition 215 - - the 1996 ballot measure that gave California residents the right to grow and distribute marijuana for use with a doctor's prescription - would have led to this moment. Ventura County residents Lynn and Judy Osburn, a married couple who grew pot for AIDS and cancer patients at the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, stood before U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Howard A. Matz on October 7. Their faces were brave, but their voices were barely audible. As Judge Matz led them through a series of questions to determine whether they understood the consequences of their actions, the Osburns each pled guilty to federal felony drug charges. [continues 1234 words]
The Hippocratic Oath begins with the order, "First, do no harm." With the Supreme Court's ruling on Tuesday, doctors can now be reasonably sure they won't be prosecuted if they follow that dictum. The decision lets stand an appeals court ruling that doctors may not be investigated, threatened or punished for prescribing medical marijuana. That means doctors in the 12 states where medical marijuana is legal can actually talk about it with their patients, rather than skirt the subject for fear of losing their licenses. [continues 630 words]
DRUGS: Nine states -- Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- allow medical use of marijuana. DENTON--When George McMahon picks up his pain relief medicine, he has to go through two sets of locked doors and, once home, store it in a locked safe. He's just done a drug deal, but it's legal. McMahon, who smokes 10 marijuana cigarettes a day to ease chronic pain, is one of a handful of patients in the government's little-known medical marijuana program. [continues 670 words]
Just for the record, and despite what you may hear from right-wing talk radio, marijuana, medical or otherwise, has not been suddenly legalized by the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, however, the Supremes did decline to hear a challenge to a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. At issue was the government's threat to yank the federal permits doctors need to prescribe any controlled substance if the doctor even discussed the merits of using marijuana in treating the side effects of chemotherapy or the wasting effects of AIDS. [continues 720 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court leaves intact state laws that permit prescription use It never made any sense for the Clinton administration to oppose the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. No sense as far as medicine and compassion for seriously ill patients were concerned, that is. But it was politically advantageous, to be sure. For a White House that had been relentlessly attacked as being too liberal on too many issues, standing firm against medicinal marijuana was a way to show the critics that the administration was tough on drugs. [continues 285 words]
CAN A DECISION by the U.S. Supreme Court be at once right and wrong, good and bad? It seems so in the court's decision effectively allowing doctors to recommend the use of marijuana to patients without fear of federal investigation and penalty. The court's refusal to hear an appeal from the Bush administration of a decision in favor of the doctors by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allows the lower court decision to stand in California and seven other Western states that have approved laws legalizing marijuana use on a physician's recommendation. [continues 292 words]
IN ITS ZEAL to thwart the use of medical marijuana in states that legalized it, the federal government overstepped its authority by trampling on the First Amendment. That apparently is the view of the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected the Bush administration's appeal of a ruling that held doctors have a free-speech right to advise sick patients of the benefits of marijuana. Under the Clinton administration, efforts by the federal government to shut down cannabis clubs that distributed medical marijuana were upheld by the Supreme Court. It ruled the federal government does have the right to enforce its drug laws. [continues 348 words]
Eight states from Maine to California authorize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, including relief for victims of multiple sclerosis and symptoms of AIDS. Technically, Connecticut permits doctors to prescribe marijuana for the "treatment of glaucoma or the side effects of chemotherapy," but none has dared do so. That's because state policies contradict federal law, which classifies marijuana as an illegal substance. This conflict has kept many doctors from prescribing the drug for fear of being punished with the loss of prescription privileges, which are controlled by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. [continues 170 words]
(snip) Medical marijuana advocates claimed a major victory Oct. 14, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider overturning a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision barring the feds from punishing doctors who recommend medical marijuana to their patients. After California voters approved a medical marijuana law in 1996, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies threatened to revoke the DEA registration of any doctor who recommended medicinal marijuana -- that would prevent the physician from prescribing any controlled substances for their patients, effectively putting them out of business. [continues 70 words]
The Supreme Court's silence has freed some doctors to talk to patients about marijuana, a step in the right direction in the nonsensical war between federal drug warriors and states that have legalized the medicinal use of pot. Without comment, the high court last week refused to hear the administration's appeal of a lower-court ruling barring federal officials from punishing doctors who recommend marijuana for their patients. It was the correct thing to do: Denying doctors the authority to write prescriptions for controlled substances if they dare to recommend marijuana, as Washington was prepared to do, violates the free speech rights both of doctors and their patients. [continues 220 words]
It was a small step for the Supreme Court, but one giant leap toward a sane drug policy. I'm talking about the high court's refusal Tuesday to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing doctors to recommend the medicinal use of marijuana to their patients. Had the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, it would have had a golden opportunity to rip the innards out of laws various states have already passed to legalize or decriminalize the medicinal use of marijuana. [continues 692 words]
WASHINGTON - It was a small step for the Supreme Court, but one giant leap toward a sane drug policy. I'm talking about the high court's refusal Tuesday to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing doctors to recommend the medicinal use of marijuana to their patients. Had the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, it would have had a golden opportunity to rip the innards out of laws various states have already passed to legalize or decriminalize the medicinal use of marijuana. [continues 679 words]
Seven years after California voters opened the door to medical marijuana, the U.S. Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether doctors should be allowed to recommend the drug to patients. Walters v. Conant, No. 03-40, one of the cases the Court will likely consider at its private conference today, stems from Proposition 215, a statewide ballot initiative approved by voters in 1996. Proposition 215 gave patients the right to seek physician-sanctioned marijuana, but the U.S. government objected, citing federal laws that restrict the use of marijuana. In 1997, a group of physicians and patients sued, trying to stop the government from revoking the prescription licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana as treatment. [continues 313 words]
Supreme Court Upholds Doctor-Patient Right To Discuss Marijuana As Medicine The sanctity of the physician-patient relationship was reaffirmed last week, as were states' rights to regulate marijuana as medicine. In a stunning victory for the First Amendment and the rights of the sick and the dying to seek unconventional treatments, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the Bush administration's argument that the federal government can punish doctors who recommend or even discuss the merits of marijuana use with their patients. [continues 208 words]
Since 1996, nine states, including Washington, have passed citizen initiatives allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The feds, whether it was the Clinton administration or the current one, have fought back, using a law passed in 1970 as its hammer. That law placed marijuana on the most-restricted list of illegal drugs, and it didn't provide for medical exceptions. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that "cannabis clubs" that had formed in California for the purpose of acquiring and supplying medical marijuana were violating the federal law. [continues 400 words]
