WASHINGTON - Angel Raich tried dozens of prescription medicines to ease the pain of a brain tumor and other illnesses before she took up another drug: pot. The 39-year-old mother of two has the support of her doctor and a California medical marijuana law when she uses a blend of a marijuana variety known as "Haze X" every few hours.
Dozens of people camped out outside the Supreme Court, some with blankets, to hear justices debate Monday whether that's enough to protect Raich from the federal government, which makes no exceptions for the seriously ill in its war on drugs.
Groups such as the Drug Free America Foundation fear a government loss in this case will undermine campaigns against addictive drugs.
Supporters of Raich and another ill woman who filed a lawsuit after her home was raided by federal agents argue that people with the AIDS (news - web sites) virus, cancer and other diseases should be able to grow and use marijuana.
Besides California, nine other states allow people to use marijuana if their doctors agree: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Arizona also has a law permitting marijuana prescriptions, but no active program.
After hearing the arguments, the Supreme Court will consider whether the federal law that bans marijuana possession can be enforced in those states.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) had ruled against the government in a divided opinion that found federal prosecution of medical marijuana users is unconstitutional if the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.
Lawyers for Raich and Diane Monson contend the government has no justification for pursuing ill small-scale users. Raich, an Oakland, Calif., mother of two teenagers, has scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other illnesses. Monson, a 47-year-old accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.
"The federal government has no compelling interest in condemning Angel Raich and Diane Monson to avoidable suffering and even death," their lawyers told justices in a court filing.
The Bush administration argues that Congress has found no accepted medical use of marijuana and needs to be able to eradicate drug trafficking and its social harms.
The Supreme Court ruled three years ago that the government could prosecute distributors of medical marijuana despite their claim that the activity was protected by "medical necessity."
Dozens of groups have weighed in on the latest case, which deals with users and is much more sweeping.
Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, conservative states that do not have medical marijuana laws, sided with the marijuana users on grounds that the federal government was trying to butt into state business of providing "for the health, safety, welfare and morals of their citizens."
Some Republican members of Congress, meanwhile, urged the court to consider that more than 20,000 people die each year because of drug abuse. A ruling against the government, they said, would help drug traffickers avoid arrest, increase the marijuana supply and send a message that illegal drugs are good.
California's 1996 medical marijuana law allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation.
Medical marijuana was an issue in the November elections. Montana voters easily approved a law that shields patients, their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution for medical marijuana. But Oregon rejected a measure that would have dramatically expanded its existing medical marijuana program.
I support medical marijuana use if the states approve it. The thing is the Federal Gov. is stepping on state rights in this case. I have never smoked pot in my life, but why not allow very sick people to grow their own pain medication, instead of popping more prescribed pain killers. Are they really any better for you?
Just seems to me that the pharmaciducal (sp?) Companies have alot to lose if medical marijuana is legalized so their lobbiests are pushing hard to stop this measure.
Cocaine, heroin, morphine and I suspect many other illegal drugs in the sense of them being used for recreational purposes have long been used for medicinal purposes. Why pot is any different I don't know.
I do not understand the argument against medicinal drug legality
If it is for medical reasons there is no reason in the world to prosecute people for this, especially when a doctor has even reccomended it!
There are an awful lot of drugs that can be prescribed legaly that are illegal for sale without a prescription, why in the world should grass be any different? I watched a friend fight cancer to her eventual death and the only relief she got from the constant nausea was from grass which she had to purchase like a common criminal because it is not legal for medical reasons here in Va. It was also the only thing that would give her an appetite to eat during chemo.
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The Tazman aka Martin Price
Proud father of a Devil Dog
I cannot see why medically prescribed marijuana should not be legal. For the life of me I cannot understand the resistance to this proven relief for those in extreme pain. It defies logic.
I agree Taz, any drug can be abused, the only differance is, this is a drug that you can grow yourself instead of depending on a pharmacy to dish it out to you.
Actually gobbler the pharmicutical firms could benefit if they used their heads, my friend hated to smoke it, she was a non-smoker, she wished she could take it in pill form and get the same relief, she tried the brownies but said it did virtually nothing for her relief and said when you have lost your appetite who wants to eat brownies! the pharmicutical firms could make it in pill form and sell it.
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The Tazman aka Martin Price
Proud father of a Devil Dog
I heard on NPR this morning that the one woman (Raich) had already tried 30 different drugs from her doctor and stopped taking them because the side effects of those drugs were worse than the illness.
Her doctor prescribed marijuana as a last resort...and it is helping her tremendously.
She said on the broadcast that if they rule against her then she will have no choice but to leave the United States and live in a country that allows it.
That is pretty sad!
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"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect."
Why not allow some research into the compounds in pot that have beneficial effects? Then, pills could be developed, and the deleterious effects might be reduced or avoided.
So the cancer patient takes a pill containing the chemicals from pot that stimulate appetite, for example, without becoming intoxicated.
High Court to Hear Medical Marijuana Case
the pharmicutical firms could make it in pill form and sell it.
