This to me is a slap in the face of voters from 10 states, and a ruling that I believe is politically motivated.
How dare the Supreme Court to overturn fair elections by the people. I am a firm believer that if the people vote for it their voices are to be heard and NOONE has the right to say the election was illegal or to overturn the election in anyway.
To me, this ruling shows that the Religious Right have our justices scared and that they will follow what is dictated to them along party lines (and pharmaceutical company interests) than what truly exists in the Constitution.
This is not just a case about Medicinal Marijuana in my eyes but the people's voices being heard and their will being honored. This sets precedent that voting doesn't mean a damn thing if the government doesn't like the issue.
If this had been a state voting to outlaw abortion and the people voted to make it law, then NOONE has the right to overturn the voice of the people. Personally, I may not agree with the law, but if the people voted for it in a state or locality, then I don't have to live there.
This is a sad day when we allow anyone to overturn elections in 10 states.
I also love the way the Justices talk of overprescribing..... lol.... that is a joke for a society that has prescriptions for toenail fungus and so on.
I also find it interesting that the Dem. Judges made the majority. I agree wholeheartedly with Justice O'Connors' dissent and I applaud Chief Rehnquist and Associate Justice Thomas for recognizing states' rights and respecting the will of the people.
Of note this should not have even been a federal case as the Marijuana in question never crossed state lines thereby Constitutionally, NOT a federal jurisdiction.
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Court Rules Against Pot for Sick People By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.
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The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug's use to treat various illnesses.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.
The closely watched case was an appeal by the Bush administration in a case involving two seriously ill California women who use marijuana. At issue was whether the prosecution of pot users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional.
Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state's economic activity so long as it involves "interstate commerce" that crosses state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown, distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.
Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, "but perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress."
California's medical marijuana law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state have laws similar to California.
In those states, doctors generally can give written or oral recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.
In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens," said O'Connor, who was joined by two other states' rights advocates: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas.
The legal question presented a dilemma for the court's conservatives, who have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years. They earlier invalidated federal laws dealing with gun possession near schools and violence against women on the grounds the activity was too local to justify federal intrusion.
O'Connor said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she were a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use."
The case concerned two Californians, Angel Raich and Diane Monson. The two had sued then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of arrest, home raids or other intrusion by federal authorities.
Raich, an Oakland woman suffering from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain, smokes marijuana every few hours. She said she was partly paralyzed until she started smoking pot. Monson, an accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.
In the court's main decision, Stevens raised concerns about abuse of marijuana laws. "Our cases have taught us that there are some unscrupulous physicians who overprescribe when it is sufficiently profitable to do so," he said.
The case is Gonzales v. Raich, 03-1454.
Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050606/...ical_marijuana