High Court to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Traditional drugs have done little to help 39-year-old Angel Raich. Beset by a list of ailments that includes tumors in her brain, seizures, spasms and nausea, she has found comfort only in the marijuana that is prescribed by her doctor.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will determine whether Raich and similar patients in California and 10 other states can continue to use marijuana for medical purposes.

At issue is whether states have the right to adopt laws allowing the use of drugs the federal government has banned or whether federal drug agents can arrest individuals for abiding by those medical marijuana laws.

California passed the nation's first so-called medical marijuana law in 1996, allowing patients to smoke and grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. The Bush administration maintains those laws violate federal drug rules and asserts that marijuana has no medical value.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-scotus-medical-marijuana,0,6974950.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

...and you know Nevada just launched yet another effort on marijuana?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=165x380

Bush has no proof about marijuana having no medical value because the government has forbidden studies involving it, and have for years. Their whole feelings towards this plant verge on the hysterical, and have since I first researched it for a debate in high school in 1967. I said that it should be legalized then, and I say so now. And no, I've never used it, either for medical or recreational purposes.

- it makes people see outside the box. This is very bad for the feudal system, thus MJ is a big threat.

because it is so manifestly false.
As long as they can sustain it, they believe they can
do anything, and we will believe them.

It is more complicated than that, with various industries
profitting from its suppression, but the government is behind it for
the first reason.

like cocaine or heroin(speaking of heroin,opium production in Afganistan will be up 700% from preinvasion amounts next year)

said that Pot was dangerous because it made people think, not react.

when I was 29. Gave me a headache. But hell, I have a sister who went through chemo at 21 and it helped her with the pain she was suffering through this following a radical mastectomy.

This is one issue that is getting old and this country's tight asses need to get over it. They are just worried their drug money for prevention and enforcement will get cut.

I also want hemp legalized to grow in this country for economic development! Instead of cutting down all those trees, use hemp! Employ more people!

and is wonderful-my husband got a pair of hemp jeans years ago which are still in great shape.

And hemp would be a good crop for former tobacco farmers. In fact, there was a candidate for governor of KY who suggested it!

"legalize it" ( which for some puerile minds means endorsing its use) let's rather use the phrase "end its prohibition". How many people do you suppose try it because it's forbidden? I'm afraid it's mostly the sheep who never dare give it a try because (whisper) it's illegal.

One can get morphines with a script, why not marijuana? We are talking about a doctors okay. Lush Limpballs can get all the oxycodine (sp?) he want's. That stuff is way more powerful and dangerous then pot. B*shie want us all doped up on antidepressants though.

1. Police. Which includes prison guards and other law enforcement. Major funding, promotions, new equipment, all funded through the drug wars and seizure laws.

2. Preachers. Which includes politicians, who get major campaign cash and a easy issue to run on, plus support from group one.

3. Smugglers. And dealers, who would see thier business disappear if you could buy at the 7/11. Dealers have no motivation to NOT sell to children and check IDs, since they're already engaged in a illegal act... but 7/11 does.

from prohibition.

Medical Hemp or Marijuana - opponents are pharmaceutical companies and chemical labs.

Industrial Hemp - opponents are other energy companies, the Oil companies, the nuclear companies, coal, hydro, and solar.

Hemp fiber for durable soft cloth - opponents are the cotton, nylon, wool and other fabric industries.

It may not be just the "anti-druggies" here -- it could just boil down to the same old thing this Administration is always bowing down to -- massive corporate influence over the politians.

Marijuana and hemp (the difference being that one is bigger and has less psychoactive ingredients) can cross pollenate when pollen is carried by the wind. If industrial hemp were allowed it would become more psychoactive in each generation.

If industrial hemp were allowed it would become more psychoactive in each generation.


Not exactly. The qualities that make industrial hemp so useful are not shared with recreational hemp. Also, the industry would work hard to eliminate cross-pollination to keep its strains pure; regulation would require that industrial hemp not exceed a predetermined threshold for percentage of THC to qualify as industrial hemp (The Europeans, for example, have chosen 0.3%).

And cross-pollination would be abhorrent to a grower of recreational hemp. He/she too would work at keeping the strain pure.

Recreation and industrial hemp have shared this planet for thousands of years. There's no reason that cannot continue, even if we do improve upon Nature's work through selective breeding.

Did you know that there is no mention of hemp in the The Textile Museum in Washington, DC, despite the fact that some historians "believe that hemp was far more common than linen until the late fourteenth century."

And I only thought Orwell was kidding about rewriting history. :)

Mostly from the great Jack Herer book: The Emperor wears no clothes...

It would take a telephone pole sized joint to get high off hemp...
It would take 9000 joints in one sitting to overdose on THC...

Check this out...
http://www.jackherer.com/comparison.html

An interesting irony, isn't it?

pretty much the same, a scapegoat and a holocoast; these people should seek asylum.

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I lived in Washington state, where it was legal with a doctor's authorization if you had certain conditions. I "qualified" both for my seizure disorder and my intractable pain.

Marijuana helps enormously to control my pain (morphine is the next step for me) and slows onset of my seizure symptoms.

I belonged to the Green Cross Patient's Co-op, a wonderful organization. It was shut down for a couple weeks by the police which caused horrible pain for lots of very sick people.

Kerry promised he would stop the DEA raids on patient co-ops and medical growers.

Terrorizing sick people fits in well with the rest of the Republican social agenda.

I moved to a state without a medical mj law so now I'm a criminal.

I've got a big stake in the Supreme's ruling on this issue.

I have always wondered about that.