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US: Judge Rules Medical Marijuana Users Can Be Arrested
KTVU.com
Wednesday 14 Mar 2007 SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges. The case was brought by Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. On her doctor's advice, she eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite as conventional drugs did not work. The case narrowed the legal argument over medical marijuana use to the so-called right to life theory: that marijuana should be allowed if it is the only viable option to keep a patient alive or free of excruciating pain. Raich, a 40-year-old mother of two from Oakland who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. She uses marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite. "She'd probably be dead without marijuana," said her doctor, Frank Lucido, who has recommended marijuana for some 3,000 patients. "Nothing else works." The Bush administration claimed the lawsuit was without merit. "There is no fundamental right to distribute, cultivate or possess marijuana," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Quinlivan, the government's lead medical marijuana attorney, wrote to the appeals court. Voters in 1996 made California the first state to authorize patients to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. Ten other states have since followed suit, but the federal government says there is no medical value to the drug. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that Raich's supplier, the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative, could not lawfully dispense marijuana despite California voters approving its medical use. Two years later, in a small victory for medical marijuana backers, the high court let stand a 9th Circuit decision saying doctors have a First Amendment right to discuss or recommend the drug to patients without the threat of federal sanctions. But last June, the Supreme Court ruled the federal government could prosecute medical marijuana users and their suppliers. In some states, federal agents have been sporadically arresting users and raiding so-called pot clubs that dole out the drug to patients. Still, a footnote by Justice Clarence Thomas in his 2001 ruling left the legal questions surrounding medical marijuana unsettled and helped open the door to Monday's 9th Circuit hearing. Thomas wrote that important underlying constitutional questions remain unresolved, such as Congress' ability to interfere with states experimenting with their own laws and whether Americans have a fundamental right to marijuana as a vehicle to stay alive and ease pain. The justices answered the first part of that footnote in June, ruling in another case brought by Raich that patients living in states with medical marijuana laws could be prosecuted because Congress has classified marijuana as an illegal controlled substance. That prompted Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., to propose legislation that would have blocked the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana users in states where it is legal. The House balked at the measure 264-161. A Hinchey spokesman said the congressman will resurrect the proposal this summer. Raich went back before the 9th Circuit, one step short of the Supreme Court, in a bid to settle the second part of Thomas' footnote ---
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