ALLOW DOCTORS TO PRESCRIBE MARIJUANA

You may not have thought to ask, but the answer is yes. Those
tomatoes you're growing in the backyard are subject to future federal
regulation.

The U.S. Supreme Court said so Monday when it found that federal
authorities had the right to confiscate six marijuana plants a
California woman grew for relief from severe back pain. The court
majority said the commerce clause of the Constitution gives Congress
the right to regulate homegrown marijuana and denies states a
role. This is true even in cases such as this one, where the product
wasn't being sold across state lines - in fact, wasn't being sold at
all - because, according to the court, the mere possibility that it
could be would have "a substantial effect on interstate commerce."

That the logical argument for federal regulation of commerce was
carried here to an illogical extreme is easily obscured by the fact
that the product was a narcotic. But in backing up its decision, the
court cited an earlier case involving wheat raised for home
consumption. So if Congress chose, it could go after your tomatoes -
a point Sandra Day O'Connor made in dissent.

The justice castigated the court for failing to draw a line between
commerce that is local and commerce that is national, a line that
would acknowledge the difference between "backyard gardening
vs. going to the supermarket," between home care and day care,
between parlor charades and movie theaters.

"The court's definition of economic activity threatens to sweep all
of productive human activity into federal regulatory reach," she
said. "To draw the line wherever private activity affects the demand
for market goods is to draw no line at all. We have already rejected
the result that would follow - a federal police power."

Well, apparently not.

Whatever problem the decision might raise someday for backyard
gardeners, it creates an immediate and terrible hardship for Diane
Monson and Angela Raich. They took the case to the court after the
Department of Justice confiscated Monson's marijuana plants. The
seizure followed a 3-hour standoff with local authorities defending
her right to grow cannabis under the California law permitting
doctors to prescribe it for serious diseases. The women argued that
the federal Controlled Substance Act, as applied here, illegally
trampled on state rights.

In saying that it did not, the court also said that federal agents
can now go after Angela Raich, who suffers from an inoperable brain
tumor, scoliosis and chronic wasting disease, and whose doctor said
marijuana was necessary to relieve her "excruciating pain." They can
go after thousands like her. But why on Earth would the feds want
to? What national purpose does it serve to raid the homes of cancer
victims and make their lives more painful?

The answer is none. No great harm would be done the nation if
Congress were to respond by carving out an exception for medical
marijuana, under a doctor's supervision, as 11 states thought they had.