Thread: Free Weeds !

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.

The laws concerning marijuana aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.

General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are
very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or -- exulting in life in the paradigm -- committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these -- 87 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10 billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

What we face is the politician's fear of endorsing any change in existing marijuana laws. You can imagine what a call for reform in those laws would do to an upward mobile political figure. Gary Johnson, as governor of New Mexico, came out in favor of legalization -- and went on to private life. George Shultz, former secretary of state, long ago called for legalization, but he was not running for office, and at his age, and with his distinctions, he is immune to slurred charges of indifference to the fate of children and humankind. But Kurt Schmoke, as mayor of Baltimore, did it, and survived a re-election challenge.

But the stodgy inertia most politicians feel is up against a creeping reality. It is that marijuana for medical relief is a movement that is attracting voters who are pretty assertive on the subject. Every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has been approved, often by wide margins.

Of course we have here collisions of federal and state authority. Federal authority technically supervenes state laws, but federal authority in the matter is being challenged on grounds of medical self-government. It simply isn't so that there are substitutes equally efficacious. Richard Brookhiser, the widely respected author and editor, has written on the subject for the New York Observer. He had a bout of cancer and found relief from chemotherapy only in marijuana -- which he consumed, and discarded after the affliction was gone.

The court has told federal enforcers that they are not to impose their way between doctors and their patients, and one bill sitting about in Congress would even deny the use of federal funds for prosecuting medical marijuana use. Critics of reform do make a pretty plausible case when they say that whatever is said about using marijuana only for medical relief masks what the advocates are really after, which is legal marijuana for whoever wants it.

That would be different from the situation today. Today we have illegal marijuana for whoever wants it. An estimated 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, the great majority abandoning its use after a few highs. But to stop using it does not close off its availability. A Boston commentator observed years ago that it is easier for an 18-year-old to get marijuana in Cambridge than to get beer. Vendors who sell beer to minors can forfeit their valuable licenses. It requires less effort for the college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel. Still, there is the danger of arrest (as 700,000 people a year will tell you), of possible imprisonment, of blemish on one's record. The obverse of this is increased cynicism about the law.

We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates reform of those laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children."

Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug?

Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.


-- William F. Buckley Jr.

Hahaha, it's late and I thought I was still in the freebie forum. I like to broke my finger getting in here. ITA with the whole article.

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these -- 87 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10 billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

This is not even counting the number of families that are torn apart by the authorities after an arrest.

High Court to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws
By DAVID KRAVETS

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - 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.


But the drug eases Raich's pain, allows her to rise out of a wheelchair and promotes an appetite that prevents her from wasting away.


It ``is the only drug of almost three dozen we have tried that works,'' said her Berkeley physician, Frank Lucido.


``I really hope and pray the justices allow me to live,'' said Raich as she crammed a blend of a marijuana variety known as ``Haze X'' into a contraption that vaporized it inside large balloons.


She said the outcome of the case will determine whether her ``husband will have a wife,'' her ``children a mother.''


The case will address questions left unresolved from the first time the high court considered the legality of medical marijuana.


In 2001, the justices ruled against clubs that distributed medical marijuana, saying they cannot do so based on the ``medical necessity'' of the patient. The ruling forced Raich's Oakland supplier to close and other cannabis clubs to operate in the shadows.


The decision did not address whether the government can block states from adopting their own medical marijuana laws.


Nevertheless, the federal government took the offensive after the ruling, often over the objections of local officials. It began seizing individuals' medical marijuana and raiding their suppliers. Nowhere was that effort more conspicuous than in the San Francisco Bay area, where the nation's medical marijuana movement was founded.


Raich and Diane Monson, the other plaintiff in the case, sued Attorney General John Ashcroft because they feared their supplies of medical marijuana might dry up. After a two-year legal battle, they won injunctions barring the U.S. Justice Department from prosecuting them or their suppliers.


``This has been a nightmare,'' said Monson, a 47-year-old accountant from Oroville whose backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized in 2002. ``I've never sued anyone in my life, never mind the attorney general of the United States of America. For crying out loud, here in California we've voted to allow medical marijuana.''


She regularly uses marijuana on a doctor's recommendation to alleviate back problems. She says it also helps cope with the recent death of her husband, who suffered from pancreatic cancer.


Last December, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Raich's and Monson's favor. It said federal laws criminalizing marijuana do not apply to patients whose doctors have recommended the drug.


The appeals court said states were free to adopt medical marijuana laws as long as the marijuana was not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes. The other states with such laws are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.


The court ruled that marijuana for medicinal purposes is ``different in kind from drug trafficking'' and outside the scope of federal oversight.


The same court last year said doctors were free to recommend marijuana to their patients. The government appealed, but the Supreme Court justices declined to hear the case.


In June, however, the justices agreed to hear the Raich-Monson case. A ruling is expected to decide the states' rights issue the court left unanswered in 2001.


Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement told the justices in briefs that the government, backed by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, has the power to regulate the ``manufacture, distribution and possession of any controlled substance,'' even if such activity takes place entirely within one state.


Besides California, the states allowing marijuana to be used as medicine with a doctor's recommendation are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.


Even some states without medical marijuana laws have criticized the federal government's position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court they ``support their neighbors' prerogative in our federalist system to serve as laboratories for experimentation.''


A number of medical groups, doctors and marijuana supporters also wrote the court, saying marijuana benefits sick patients.


Raich, whose legal team includes her husband, Robert, said she hopes the chemotherapy Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is undergoing for thyroid cancer ``would soften his heart about the issue.''


``I think,'' she said, ``he would find that cannabis would help him a lot.''


The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...83.htm&sc=1154


On the Net:


Raich's site: http://www.angeljustice.org


Federal solicitor general's office: http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/



11/25/04 13:18

Wary Court Considers Medical Marijuana
By GINA HOLLAND

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court appeared hesitant Monday to endorse medical marijuana for patients who have a doctor's recommendation.

Justices are considering whether sick people in 11 states with medical marijuana laws can get around a federal ban on pot.

Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top court lawyer, noted that California allows people with chronic physical and mental health problems to smoke pot and said that potentially many people are subjecting themselves to health dangers. ``Smoked marijuana really doesn't have any future in medicine,'' he said.


Justice Stephen Breyer said supporters of marijuana for the ill should take their fight to federal drug regulators - before coming to the Supreme Court, and several justices repeatedly referred to America's drug addiction problems.

Dozens of people, some with blankets, camped outside the high court to hear justices debate the issue. Groups such as the Drug Free America Foundation fear a government loss will undermine campaigns against addictive drugs.

The high court heard arguments in the case of Angel Raich, who tried dozens of prescription medicines to ease the pain of a brain tumor and other illnesses before she turned to pot. Supporters of Raich and another ill woman who filed a lawsuit after her California home was raided by federal agents argue that people with the AIDS virus, cancer and other diseases should be able to grow and use marijuana.

Their attorney, Randy Barnett of Boston, told justices that his clients are law-abiding citizens who need marijuana to survive. Marijuana may have some side effects, he said, but seriously sick people are willing to take the chance.

Besides California, nine other states allow people to use marijuana if their doctors agree: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Arizona also has a law permitting marijuana prescriptions, but no active program.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the government in a divided opinion that found federal prosecution of medical marijuana users is unconstitutional if the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.

Lawyers for Raich and Diane Monson contend the government has no justification for pursuing ill small-scale users. Raich, an Oakland, Calif., mother of two teenagers, has scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other illnesses. Monson, a 47-year-old accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.

The Bush administration argues that Congress has found no accepted medical use of marijuana and needs to be able to eradicate drug trafficking and its social harms.

The Supreme Court ruled three years ago that the government could prosecute distributors of medical marijuana despite their claim that the activity was protected by ``medical necessity.''

Dozens of groups have weighed in on the latest case, which deals with users and is much more sweeping.

Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, conservative states that do not have medical marijuana laws, sided with the marijuana users on grounds that the federal government was trying to butt into state business of providing ``for the health, safety, welfare and morals of their citizens.''


Some Republican members of Congress, meanwhile, urged the court to consider that more than 20,000 people die each year because of drug abuse. A ruling against the government, they said, would help drug traffickers avoid arrest, increase the marijuana supply and send a message that illegal drugs are good.


California's 1996 medical marijuana law allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation.


Medical marijuana was an issue in the November elections. Montana voters easily approved a law that shields patients, their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution for medical marijuana. But Oregon rejected a measure that would have dramatically expanded its existing medical marijuana program.


The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...96.htm&sc=1154



On the Net:

Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus.gov



11/29/04 12:15

I say, if people wanna smoke the wacky tabaccy, let 'em. Why on Earth we waste our time, money and manpower enforcing it's illegality is beyond me. And yes, I've smoked plenty of it (PRIOR to having children) and while, excessive use can zap your brain cells, I feel nothing is wrong with occasional recreational use or medical use. JMO

http://monkeyfist.com/articles/798

Interesting article about the legal use of medical marijuana, sponsored by the federal government. This is an older article (2001); I read an article in a magazine (not accessibe online - the horrors!) about 3 months ago, and the number of patients in the program now is 7 or 8, I believe.

http://www.maps.org/mmj/

sorry thought it said free weed......ahahahahahaha
ITA JKatherine
longstanding member of norml and proud of it

Pot Ingredient Slows Heart Disease in Mice
By MALCOLM RITTER

Low doses of the main active ingredient in marijuana slowed the progression of hardening of the arteries in mice, suggesting a hint for developing a new therapy in people.

Experts stressed that the finding does not mean people should smoke marijuana in hopes of getting the same benefit. ``To extrapolate this to, `A joint a day will keep the doctor away,' I think is premature,'' said Dr. Peter Libby, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The mouse work is presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Dr. Francois Mach of Geneva University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, and colleagues. He said in an e-mail that he believed future work will focus on finding drugs that mimic the benefit without producing marijuana's effects on the brain.


Hardening of the arteries sets the stage for heart attacks. Inflammation plays a key role in the condition, characterized by a progressive buildup on the inside walls of blood vessels. So Mach and colleagues explored the anti-inflammatory effects of marijuana's main active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.


They fed mice a high-cholesterol diet for 11 weeks. About halfway through that period, they started giving some of the mice very low, daily oral doses of THC - too low to produce any marijuana-like changes in behavior. At the end of the experiment, mice that had gotten the THC showed less blood vessel clogging than did mice that got no THC.


Related work showed no additional benefit from higher THC doses, such as a person would get from smoking marijuana, Mach noted.


Researchers found that the benefit came from THC's effect on immune-system cells. It reduced their secretion of an inflammation-promoting substance and their migration to the vessel wall, researchers found.


It apparently did that by binding to proteins called CB2 receptors, which are found mostly on immune-system cells. THC also targets CB1 receptors, found mostly in the brain. So the work suggests scientists should try to develop a drug that works on CB2 receptors while ignoring the brain receptors, Mach said.


Libby, who did not participate in the study, said the work was valuable for identifying the CB2 receptor as a potential target for treatment in hardening of the arteries, and showing that a natural substance could help.


But he noted that controlling one's weight, exercising and eating right have already been proven to reduce a person's risk of heart attacks and strokes from clogged arteries.


Dr. Edward A. Fisher of the New York University School of Medicine said THC's impact on artery-clogging in the experiment was relatively modest, and that it's not clear that results would apply to people.



04/06/05 13:55

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...20.htm&sc=1500

Court Overturns Pot Grower's Conviction
By DAVID KRAVETS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court Wednesday overturned the pot-growing conviction of the self-proclaimed ``Guru of Ganja,'' a marijuana advocate who has written books on how to grow pot and avoid getting caught.

The court cited jury misconduct in overturning Ed Rosenthal's conviction, but it otherwise upheld federal powers to charge marijuana growers.

Rosenthal was convicted in 2003 for cultivating hundreds of marijuana plants for a city of Oakland medical marijuana program. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison, saying Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of city officials.

The government sought a two-year prison term and appealed. Rosenthal cross-appealed.

The case drew national attention, in part, because of Rosenthal's status as a leading author and proponent of marijuana. It also underscored the federal government's position that medical marijuana is illegal, it has no medical value, and the will of California voters has no affect on federal drug laws.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court, in overturning the verdict, said a juror had had inappropriate communication with an attorney.

``Juror A'' had asked a friend who is an attorney whether she had to follow the law or could vote her conscience because she suspected Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medicinal uses. The attorney told her she must follow the judge's instructions to follow federal law or she would get in ``trouble.''

``We hold that here the communication was an improper influence upon Juror A's decision to acquit or convict,'' the appeals court wrote.

The court rejected Rosenthal's argument that he should have been allowed to tell jurors he was growing marijuana for the city for medicinal uses.

While the case was on appeal, and despite Rosenthal's claims, the Supreme Court ruled again that the federal government can prosecute medical marijuana growers and users despite California's medical marijuana law.

Rosenthal once wrote the ``Ask Ed'' column for High Times magazine and has written books with titles including ``The Big Book of Buds'' and ``Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted.''

Reached by phone Wednesday, he declined immediate comment on the ruling, saying he had not yet read the decision.

U.S. attorney's spokesman Luke Macaulay said the office was considering whether to appeal or going ahead with a new trial.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...37.htm&sc=1110

04/26/06

You'll never see weed leaglized because there is no way for the government to tax it.