A WIN FOR U.S. DRUG LAWS

Well, just have a toke on this one, dude!

Yes, federal drug laws really mean what they say, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in a 6-3 decision released yesterday. Even if California
and nine other states (including nearby Maine and Vermont) would
permit people to grow, smoke and or obtain marijuana with the consent
of a doctor to treat certain medical conditions, those laws run afoul
of federal drug laws. While most are sympathetic to the needs of
patients with AIDS or cancer who want to use the drug to relieve
nausea, the potential for abuse of any system set up to regulate the
use of an otherwise recreational drug remains enormous. In the court's
main decision, Justice John Paul Stevens alluded to that issue,
noting, "Our cases have taught us that there are some unscrupulous
physicians who overprescribe when it is sufficiently profitable to do
so." It is perhaps most intriguing that the court's most liberal
members, such as Stevens, were solidly aligned in support of federal
drug laws, while it's most conservative members - Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence
Thomas - thought states ought to have the right to set their own
rules. And when some Maine resident with a baggie of home-grown weed
(for medicinal purposes only, mind you) crosses the border into
Massachusetts, then what?

As Stevens wrote, if there's enough voter sentiment to revisit the
nation's policies on marijuana, let that happen where it should
happen - in Congress.