Prescriptions going to pot

Congress has the authority to grant all 50 States the right to prescribe medicinal marijuana to alleviate the pain and suffering of patients who can't find relief through other modern methods of medicine, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday. The U.S. Government, without Congressional intervention, may prosecute cancer patients, HIV/AIDS patients and Americans suffering from dehabilitating pain who ingest doctor-prescribed marijuana or grow marijuana plants for intended medicinal use. \n"The regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority opinion, which included Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. "Prohibiting the intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of commerce is a rational (and commonly utilized) means of regulating commerce in that product." California residents and medicinal marijuana users Diane Monson and Angel Raich sued the federal government for intrusion and potential future intrusion into their prescribed medicine regiment, which includes the ingestion of marijuana. Monson suffers from back pain caused by a degenerative disease of the spine and Raich suffers from an inoperable brain tumor and a seizure disorder. \nMajority opinion hugged and would not let go of the 1942 Supreme Court decision Wickard v. Filburn for legal validity, which involved the Government's regulation of local wheat farming involving a farmer's intent to sell his excess produce throughout the open market. They also cited the Supremacy Clause that "unambiguously" ensures federal law prevails when in conflict with state law.\n"The court held Congress has the power, through Controlled Substances Act, to forbid even personal use of marijuana, whether ill or not, and the state can't trump that power," said Craig Bradley, a James Louis Calamaras professor of law at IU. "They weren't voting according to their beliefs about marijuana. The remedy is Congress -- they say states can or can not have medicinal marijuana and exceptions in drug laws."\nCalamaras said Congressional authority for state-practiced medicinal marijuana has little prospect because of the current partisan legislative environment on Capitol Hill. He disagreed with the majority's likening of wheat to marijuana and their claim of potential effects of medicinal marijuana on the interstate market because illegal distribution of legal narcotics is "another crime" altogether. \nThe 1970 Controlled Substances Act classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance based on claims the drug has a high potential for abuse, it possesses no accepted medical use and it has not been accepted as a safe form of supervised-medical treatment. As a result, none of the 50 states can grant their citizens consent to manufacture, distribute or possess marijuana without Congressional consent because the above are criminal offenses. \n"This case exemplifies the role of states as laboratories. The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety and welfare of their citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the minority opinion, which included Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. "Even if intrastate cultivation and possession of marijuana for one's own medicinal use can properly be characterized as economic, and I question whether it can, it has not been shown that such activity substantially affects interstate commerce ... The Court's definition of economic activity for purposes of the Commerce Clause jurisprudence threatens to sweep all of productive human activity into federal regulatory reach."\nMajority opinion doubted law enforcement inability to distinguish between marijuana "cultivated locally" and marijuana "grown elsewhere" and as further rationale to prohibit medicinal marijuana within willing state populaces and governmental bodies. They also cited concerns about medicinal marijuana being diverted into illicit channels much like most opiate-based pain-reducing medications -- many of which are classified as Schedule II narcotics under the CSA -- and other pharmaceuticals like anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications. \n"As the Court explains, marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal use is never more than an instant from the interstate market -- and this is so whether or not the possession is for medicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular State," the majority opinion stated.\nCongressional authority in this case, the Supreme Court ruled, overrules medical marijuana laws in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington state -- all but two of which passed medicinal marijuana laws based on public voting referendum. Many news outlets have reported state officials from California and elsewhere have doubted since Monday the U.S. Justice Department's intention to smoke out otherwise law abiding citizens smoking medical marijuana based on the medical advice of a licensed physician. \n"Even assuming the CSA's ban on locally cultivated and consumed marijuana is 'necessary,' that does not mean it is also proper," Justice Thomas wrote in his own dissent of particular clauses in the majority and minority opinions. "Here, Congress has encroached on States' traditional police powers to define the criminal law and to protect the health, safety and welfare of their citizens ... If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States -- One searches the Court's opinion in vain for any hint of what aspect of American life is reserved to the States."\nThe minority also said any similarity between commercial wheat and medicinal marijuana amounted to "bare declarations" that were asserted "without any supporting evidence -- descriptive, statistical or otherwise."\n"The homegrown cultivation and personal possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has no apparent commercial character -- they have simply grown, in their homes, marijuana for their own use, without acquiring, buying, selling, or bartering a thing of value," the minority opinion stated. "The Government has made no showing in fact that the possession and use of homegrown marijuana for medical purposes, in California or elsewhere, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce ... This overreaching stifles an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently."\nJustice Thomas, consistent in tone to the otherwise minority opinion and in utter contempt of the so-called majority opinion, concluded in his dissent: "Our federalist system, properly understood, allows California and a growing number of other States to decide for themselves how to safeguard the health and welfare of their citizens"