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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US CA: Court's Medical Pot Ruling Shields Doctors
ccguide Wednesday 30 Oct 2002 Pubdate: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 2002 The Sacramento Bee Contact: Website: http://www.sacbee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376 Author: Claire Cooper, Bee Legal Affairs Writer Note: The court opinion is now a webpage at http://www.mapinc.org/conantvswalt ers.htm Just Judge Kozinski's concurring opinion is at http://www.mapinc.org/k ozinski.htm and the entire document as a high quality printable .pdf file (34 p ages, 78k) - an exact copy of the document provided by the court - is at http:/ /www.mapinc.org/conantvwalters.pdf Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/find?154 (Conant vs. McCaffrey) http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) COURT'S MEDICAL POT RULING SHIELDS DOCTORS SAN FRANCISCO -- Removing a major obstacle to implementation of state medical marijuana laws, a federal appeals court Tuesday prohibited the federal government from cracking down on physicians who recommend pot to their patients. The decision provides a missing link between patients and pot-access laws in states such as California, where marijuana is legal medicine only if recommended by a doctor. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resoundingly rejected a national policy adopted five years ago by the Clinton administration and retained under President Bush. Announced with fanfare, the policy put doctors on notice that their federal licenses to prescribe drugs could be revoked, they could be booted from Medicare and other federal health-care programs, and they could be prosecuted in the federal courts. A group of doctors and their patients sued, saying their private discussions about treatment options had been chilled by the warnings. Many doctors had refused to talk about marijuana with their patients entirely. They won a series of injunctions, which the 9th Circuit has now upheld in the first opinion of its kind. Federal authorities can't even investigate doctors who merely recommend marijuana "because a doctor's recommendation does not itself constitute illegal conduct," the court said. While doctors still can be punished if they "aid and abet the actual distribution and possession of marijuana," said the court in an opinion by its chief judge, Mary Schroeder of Phoenix, they can't be held responsible if patients acquire marijuana after leaving the office -- even if the doctors anticipate that will happen. The court's opinion does not alter the status of marijuana as a drug that is illegal under federal law. As a practical matter, however, state laws govern virtually all criminal enforcement as well as virtually all regulation of the medical profession. The 9th Circuit told federal authorities to let the states do their thing. Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive officer of the California Medical Association, said the CMA will advise doctors "they are now free to discuss openly with their patients ... the issue of marijuana or any other substance that they believe will be helpful." Although they won't be able to write pot prescriptions until federal law is changed, Lewin said, the decision allows them to "put in writing their discussions with the patients." Keith Vines, a San Francisco assistant district attorney, predicted the circuit opinion would "open the door." An AIDS patient whose doctor recommended the marijuana that he credits with saving his life, Vines said that for him, the decision meant "that I can pick up the phone and the doctor will still be practicing medicine." "What was so insidious about this government policy," said Ann Brick of the American Civil Liberties Union, which led the legal challenge, "is that it turned the war on drugs into a war on patients. We don't want sick people going to the Internet for medical advice because their doctors are afraid to give it." On the losing side of the case, the U.S. Justice Department said it was reviewing the opinion. The 9th Circuit is the top federal court for California and most of the eight other states where marijuana is legal medicine. Only the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn its rulings. The high court did so in 2001, after the 9th Circuit ruled that patients accused of violating federal drug laws could claim medical necessity as a defense. Since then, federal authorities have conducted a series of raids against medical marijuana operations throughout California. Valerie Corral, an epilepsy patient and founder of a Santa Cruz medical pot collective that recently was raided by federal agents, said the new decision "re-establishes marijuana in the framework of medicine, and I don't think anything can be more important than that to patients." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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