Supreme
Court rules in favor of medical marijuana
SAN
FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday
rejected a Justice Department effort to
punish doctors in California and other states
for recommending marijuana or even discussing
the drug's benefits with their ill patients.
The
justices, in declining to review a federal
appellate decision favoring the doctors,
handed a major victory to medical marijuana
patients in nine states that allow the infirm
to smoke or grow marijuana with a doctor's
recommendation.
''My
goodness this is so incredible,'' said California
cancer patient Angel Raich, who smokes medical
marijuana with a doctor's recommendation
every two hours when she is awake. ''Hopefully,
they'll be more doctors now that will feel
safer in recommending cannabis to patients
that need it.''
The
Bush administration had sought to punish
doctors who recommend or discuss marijuana
by revoking the Drug Enforcement Administration
licenses they need to make prescriptions,
effectively barring them from practicing
medicine.
A
ruling in favor of the federal government
would have gutted state marijuana laws,
which generally depend on a patient's ability
to get a doctor's recommendation.
Those
states are Alaska, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon
and Washington. Thirty-five states have
passed legislation recognizing marijuana's
medicinal value, in contrast to federal
law, which declares cannabis to have no
medical benefit and classifies it as an
illegal drug akin to LSD.
Patients
with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and other illnesses
who use marijuana say it alleviates pain,
helps them eat and keeps them from becoming
nauseated.
Berkeley
physician Frank Lucido, Raich's doctor,
said the justices' move Tuesday ''takes
some of the fear and intimidation factor
out of doctors performing their practice.''
Even
some supporters of these laws had expected
the Supreme Court to step into the case.
They said the court's refusal to intervene,
although it does not address the merits
of the case, could encourage other states
to consider passing medical marijuana laws.
''It
finally definitively puts to rest these
federal threats against doctors and patients,''
said Graham Boyd, an American Civil Liberties
Union attorney representing patients, doctors,
and other groups in the case.
Without
comment, the justices let stand a decision
last October by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals, which held that physicians have
a constitutional right to speak candidly
with their patients about marijuana without
fear of government sanctions.
''An
integral component of the practice of medicine
is the communication between doctor and
a patient. Physicians must be able to speak
frankly and openly to patients,'' Chief
Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder ruled last
October.
Acting
on a lawsuit filed by seven California doctors
and some of their patients during the Clinton
Administration, a federal judge three years
ago had blocked the Justice Department from
taking any punitive action against doctors
who recommend marijuana.
In
their appeal, federal prosecutors argued
that doctors who recommend marijuana are
interfering with the drug war and circumventing
the government's judgment that the illegal
drug has no medical benefit.
The
conflict began after California voters passed
the nation's first medical marijuana law,
Proposition 215, in 1996. The Clinton administration
said doctors who recommended marijuana would
lose their federal licenses to prescribe
medicine, could be excluded from Medicare
and Medicaid programs, and could face criminal
charges if they help patients actually obtain
marijuana. The Bush administration continued
Clinton's fight.
In
2001, the Supreme Court ruled against medical
marijuana clubs. In that case, Justice Clarence
Thomas wrote that an Oakland pot club could
not defend its actions against federal drug
laws by declaring it was dispensing marijuana
to the medically needy.
The
justices said then that they were addressing
only the issue of a so-called ''medical
necessity defense'' being at odds with a
1970 federal law declaring that marijuana,
like heroin and LSD, has no medical benefits
and cannot be dispensed or prescribed by
doctors.
Thomas
wrote in a footnote then that important
underlying constitutional questions remained
unresolved, such as Congress' ability to
interfere with intrastate commerce, the
right of states to experiment with their
own laws and whether Americans have a fundamental
right to marijuana as an avenue to be free
of pain.
Since
the justices acted without comment on the
merits of the Bush administration's case,
Tuesday's decision does little to resolve
the constitutional issues Thomas raised.
But
Raich and others have seized on that footnote,
suing the government to be able to obtain
marijuana without the threat of federal
prosecution. At least two such cases are
still pending before the 9th Circuit.
The
case against the doctors pitted the First
Amendment free-speech rights of physicians
against government power to keep them from
encouraging illegal drug use.
Some
California doctors and patients, in filings
at the Supreme Court, compared doctor information
on pot to physicians' advice on ''red wine
to reduce the risk of heart disease, Vitamin
C, acupuncture, or chicken soup.''
The
administration argued that public heath
-- not free speech -- was at stake.
''The
provision of medical advice -- whether it
be that the patient take aspirin or Vitamin
C, lose or gain weight, exercise or rest,
smoke or refrain from smoking marijuana
-- is not pure speech. It is the conduct
of the practice of medicine. As such, it
is subject to reasonable regulation,'' Solicitor
General Theodore Olson had said in court
papers.
|
