THE SUPREME COURT MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISTRIBUTION JUDGEMENT

The recent Supreme Court ruling on Medical Marijuana is very interesting
on a number of points. It is interesting for what it said and what it
didn't say. What it did and what it didn't do. And especially for how
the government framed the case.

The issue before the court was whether it was legal under the common law
doctrine of medical necessity for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative to manufacture and distribute medical marijuana to patients
who are seriously ill and for whom no other drug provides relief or the
desired medical effect. The kind of patients we are talking about have
cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, quadriplegia and other serious
ailments.

So the first point is we have sick people. The second point is that
under the Controlled Substance Act there are five schedules that a drug
can be placed in to determine the kind of restrictions required to sell
the drug. The least restrictive section allows unlimited over the
counter sales. The most restrictive section allows no sales at all.
Marijuana by law is placed in the most restrictive section. What are the
criteria for being placed in the most restrictive section?

A drug must have no medically accepted use in treatment. The drug must
have a high potential for abuse and the drug must be insufficiently safe
for its intended use.

So our first question is does marijuana have a medical use? A report
from the Institute Of Medicine commissioned by our former Emperor of
Drugs Barry McCaffrey said that it does have medicinal uses.

So what is the drug's potential for abuse? Department of Justice studies
say that its potential for abuse is near or lower than that of coffee
and lower than tobacco and alcohol.

And finally how safe is the drug? First let me note that there are
usually between 500 to 1000 aspirin overdose deaths a year intentional
and unintentional. For marijuana there have been zero recorded overdose
deaths in 5,000 years. Aspirin should have as good a record.

So we see that marijuana does not fit the category it was assigned. No
medical use.

A further point is that the government itself surprisingly recognizes a
medical marijuana defense. Its called the Compassionate IND program. It
distributes medical marijuana to eight surviving patients. About seven
pounds a year each. These eight claimed a medical necessity defense and
if marijuana was illegal the government was required to supply it since
there was no other legal source of supply. And the judge in the case
said yes there is indeed a medical necessity defense and the government
needed to supply all the plaintiffs future needs. So marijuana was
assigned to the Compassionate IND program. A heavily guarded farm in
Mississippi still grows the federal medicinal marijuana the patients
require. Your Federal Tax dollars at work.

The government in its brief said only the government was allowed to be
compassionate. And that there was darn little of that to go around.
Eight is enough.

And the funny thing is our compassionate conservatives bought this
argument so well that they never even mentioned it in their decision.
Despite the plaintiffs lawyer Gerald Uelmen of OJ fame having mentioned
it in the oral arguments as well. In addition five of the justices
claimed that besides not allowing groups or other individuals to be
compassionate to the sufferers perhaps the sufferers couldn't even be
compassionate to themselves. The issue of scheduling was never discussed
in the decision.