Medical Marijuana debate goes before Supreme Court, USA

their specious assertion that marijuana is addictive?

Sheesh, are they going to ban most prescription pain-killers, sleeping pills, anti-depressents, anti-convulsants, and anything else that your body develops a need for over time?

And just so we're clear, alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine ought to be banned as well.

I'd like to have an alternative to anti-seizure meds and painkillers/muscle relaxers.

Usually the feds win I would think.We seem to have a mixed message coming from DC. States rights are great unless you do something we do not like.

oh delicious irony of ironies...

that marijuana is addictive?

Three reasons why the powers that be are so afraid of marijuana. One, it makes you more aware, not less. Two, anyone can grow their own, who needs expensive prescriptions. Three, industrial hemp would a serious crimp on oil industry profits.

how can we trust the Supremes to do the right thing? I surely don't.

Isn't it possible that we'll get a 4-4? What happens then?

A) Marijuana can be addictive, not physically like heroin and the like, but psychologically. (But then so can just about anything in people with an addictive personality.) I have a very dear friend who is in rehab right now to treat her marijuana addiction (and the underlying emotional problems that led her to become addicted).

B) I thought this quote, "They insist that legalizing marijuana for medical (private) use would be a godsend for traffickers and pushers" was hysterical. By this standard, anything and everything could be outlawed because bad people might use the thing prohibited to their own benefit.

C) A 4-4 vote is unlikely because Rehnquist may not be hearing oral arguments, but he is still participating in decisions. He can still read briefs, as I understand it.

D) The feds will win this case in all liklihood, because the regulation of drugs, legal and illegal, is under the federal domain via the interstate commerce clause.

The food and drug act that the feds rely upon to regulate drugs (legal and illegal) was passed and has been repeatedly upheld as a proper part of Congress' power under the interstate commerce clause.

Read this case: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=317&invol=111

It's still good law. A farmer growing wheat for his own consumption was bannned because of the overall effect it could have on interstate commerce.

The ICC gives Congress broad powers to regulate. It's good in many ways. It just sucks when it comes back to bite progressives on the ass. :-(

“The genius and character of the whole government seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally; but not to those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government. The completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself.''

See GIBBONS v. OGDEN, 22 U.S. 1 (1824)

industry to thrive, create jobs, reduce reliance on foreign oil, ease pain...
:smoke:

"Perhaps the most important issue of all is whether patients have the right to take a product which relieves their chronic pain, distress and discomfort."

since when have patients had "rights"? That would imply we live in a democracy.