Supreme Court To Look At Medicinal Marijuana

I'm not a reep, and I'm not opposed to legalizing marijuana, but this whole medicinal marijuana business is as phony as a 3-dollar bill.

If you go to one of these dispensaries, you'll see a "pharmacy" with some stoner dispensing prescriptions in baggies. It's really hilarious. The one that I've been to actually has a sign that says "no smoking except in case of medical emergency!"

And when the supreme court takes on cases like this, as trivial as they come, I have no sympathy when they complain about their workload.

 

Rehnquist must really need it now.
Hmmmmm...

 

its about time to legalized marijuana

 

There's a difference between the theory and the implementation. It's two different issues. First of all, do the states have the right to allow the use of marijuana for strictly medicinal purposes. Yes or No? Only then can you talk about the implementation of the policy. If it's actually being used as a way to distribute to dope to people who aren't sick, well that's a problem. However, it's not the problem of the really sick people, it's a problem for regulators and law enforcement.

Rush bought oxycodone from his housekeeper illegally. Because people do that every day of the week does that mean that people with a legitimate need for oxycodone shouldn't be allowed to have it?

Do you see the difference?

 

I think it's the same reason that you can't buy heroin with a prescription. You can get morphine and codeine but not opium. You can get all kinds of anesthetics but not cocaine with a prescription. Because those aren't drugs that any legitimate doctor wants to prescribe, they have plenty of superior substitutes. Allowing prescriptions of heroin would just be asking for abuse and make it infinitely more tough to enforce the laws.

And there are probably about 5 legitimate doctors and about 5 legitimate patients who can't get by without pot. The rest are scam doctors and stoners with back pain. (and probably stoners with phony doctor's notes) The only reason anyone would waste the effort to pass an initiative like here in California is to get a foot in the door for legalization.

 

I've heard stories in the past that a supreme court justices' wife has severe glaucoma, and is one of a dozen people who is the beneficiary of a tin can of herbal products every month, grown by the federal government.

Has anyone else heard that, or can support/disprove this?

Anyway, I hope medical marijauna laws are stricken down. Haven't we all seen the ill-effects of allowing doctors to prescribe morphine to terminally ill patients? Who does not shudder at the vacuous stares of the legion of opiod-addicted teenagers who spend their allowances by going to that little old cancer-stricken lady down the street?

 

The issue isn't really state's rights but Federal government's rights.

The states have all the power, except for what is given in the Constitution to the Feds. Here, the Feds are trying to regulate marijuana through the "commerce clause" of the Constitution, which says they can regulate anything which deals with commerce between the states.

This has been interpreted very liberally in the past, hence the expanding power of the Feds (especially following the depression).

So this case is more important than just as it applies to medical marijuana. I, for one, would like to see Federal power reigned in a bit... at least when it comes to medical/ethical issues.

 

Excellent analysis.

The other interesting point is the flip-flopping of the Justices on the Commerce Clause. I don't think Scalia in his wildest dreams ever imagined when he voted for limiting the power of the commerce clause in the past several years that it would come back to haunt him when it came to drug enforcement laws. He's got to figure out some way to distinguish drug crimes from gun crimes and crimes of violence towards women if he doesn't want those precedents to apply.

Much like Bush v. Gore the opinion in this case could ultimately require justices to change their views on states rights for the sole purpose of engineering a desired result.

 

For those who got lost there, the Sup Court has held the Feds didn't have power to regulate laws re: certain gun violations and violence towards women statutes, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. They essentially found the connection between Interstate Commerce and what the Feds wanted to do too slight.

So, the Court needs to distinguish the anti-marijuana laws from the gun and violence laws if they want to uphold the Fed anti-marijuana laws.

A lot will depend on what evidence of marijuana's effects on interstate commerce can be presented.

 

Oh jeez, I quoted this to yell at you about how I saw my mother's suffering eased at the end with morphine blah blah blah and then I realized that you're kidding. Sorry.

You are kidding, right?

 

You're not allowed to post on Big Soccer until after you've reviewed the entire case file.

The "illegal interstate commerce" point is interesting, but I think that's easily answered by saying that drugs have an impact on interstate commerce the same way that restaurants in Alabama have an impact on interstate commerce.

Here the question is whether the homegrown marijuana produced (in theory) under strict state law requirements respecting the non-trafficking of the weed is removed enough from interstate commerce to still be regulated.

I'm siding with the attorney general on this one, even though it's embarassing that he took time out from harassing non-terrorist immigrants to bring this case.

 

In the long run, with 5 Scalia/Thomases on the bench, who knows? But not really. I just think the guns and violence against women act cases were decided wrongly.

I think you've either got to go back in time to a definition of interstate commerce that would paralyze the nation (the Sugar trust cases, I think), or you've got to just accept that Commerce is as wide as the day is long.

I can't see a principled line that the Supremes can draw. I'm more eager to see whether Scalia/Thomas and Stevens/Ginsberg will give up their principles to get the result they want.

 

Nothing personal, but this is what happens when you don't do your homework.

Nobody was arrested here, and this is not an appeal of a sentence.

Rather, this is a request by a woman in California for a Declaratory Judgement. The woman in question has a prescription and is using marijuana. (Although why her surgeon didn't just write for mabinol escapes me, but no matter). She has essentially petitioned the court asking them to express an opinion.

As such, the AG in his role as the head of the US Justice Dept, was automatically included. Your snarky wiseass comment about "taking time out" is too stupid for further comment. He isn't the one schlepping up and down courthouse steps with arms full of briefs.

This is however a fascinating case, involving enumerated powers and, coincidentally, the commerce clause.

The jackasss who started the thread wanted to make some snide remark about "the Reeps" and "states rights" as if this was 1859 and South Carolina was holding a secession convention. (Which, just incidentally, would have been entirely Democrat)

Fact is that a number of conservative legal experts have filed or signed on to amicus briefs in this case, including the former Bush administration Solicitor general and an ex-Reagan Assistant AG.

If you guys could take a break for five flipping minutes from this meme that everything is an "us vs. them" contest to the death, you might learn something here.

What's more, most liberals are at least a little ambiguous about cases which tend to limit the power of the Federal Government.

Some of you should take a few minutes sometime and research the issues here. Marijuana isn't really the question - California won't touch her and the FBI really has better things to do than bust in on terminally ill women with inoperable brain tumors.

Rather, it's about limiting the power the government has over every facet of your existence.

 

Homework done. The declaratory judgment was brought in response to increased enforcement efforts by the DEA in raiding private marijuana supplies. These raids were not done by accident, but rather as a targeted effort at enforcing federal drug laws in cases where individuals were complying with state laws.

Now you're entitled to your opinion about my snarkiness and wiseassness, but the fact remains that a choice was made to invest resources in busting up "medical marijuana" users as opposed to investing resources in other areas. You might think that's a wise use of resources and that's fine. I'm still entitled to have a snarky wiseass opinion otherwise.

On this we agree.

For which side?

I think if you actually read my posts you'll see that my comments are exactly about the contradiction inherent in the states rights/law enforcement issues for both conservative and liberal jurists.

We have a conversation going about the reach of the Commerce Clause if you'd care to comment on it. My stated opinion is that I don't see how you can put a principled limit on its reach in this day and age and I'm therefore in favor of the government winning on this case. What is your principled limitation on the reach of the Commerce Clause? Or do we only discuss snarky wiseass comments here?

 

I think that one of the interesting twists on this case is Rehnquist not having been there for the arguments, given his specialty in federalism. He'll still participate - and given the issue, potentially still write an opinion - and I'll look forward to that opinion...really any from this case should be a good read...so much bigger than medical marijuana use.