HIGH COURT'S RULING DENIES MEDICINE TO THE ILL

As unbelievable as is it may sound, the U.S. Supreme Court said in
Gonzales v. Raich that the Constitution's Commerce Clause supersedes
the unenumerated Ninth Amendment right to grow food, grow medicinal
plants, including marijuana, and to feed or medicate one's own body.

The court gave particular relevance to the New Deal case of Wickard v.
Filburn (1942), maintaining that Congress' commerce power included
intrastate production of wheat produced for the farmer's own
consumption. To think that something as fundamental to survival as the
production of food and medicine for strictly personal consumption is
only a privilege granted by Congress contravenes every principle upon
which this nation was founded.

And then to deny the sick and suffering their right to medicate
themselves is a usurpation of liberty and justice so reprehensible
that it confounds the most unreasonable among us. Indeed, the
unenumerated rights protected by the Ninth Amendment will never be
protected.

The Ninth Amendment is a dead letter.

This decision demands that we put an Enumerated Rights Amendment into
the Constitution. And let's demand to have it authorized by state
constitutional conventions instead of by the state
legislatures.

This is a matter for the people to decide, not elected officials. With
God's grace, perhaps America won't have to thank the Almighty Congress
for the dinner we harvest.

Chris Wright

Edina