FEDERAL DRUG LAW NEEDS TO BE CHANGED

Virginia state law 18.2-251.1 states in part: "Possession or
distribution of marijuana for medical purposes permitted. A. No person
shall be prosecuted under 18.2-250.1 for the possession of
marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol when that possession occurs pursuant
to a valid prescription issued by a medical doctor in the course of
his professional practice for treatment of cancer or glaucoma."

At issue in the case before the Supreme Court is if the DEA were
granted authority by the U.S. Constitution to block an individual from
growing and using Cannabis [marijuana] for their own non-commercial
use within their own respective state. Why is this wording important?
The case that clarified the authority the Congress could wield over
industry was defined by the case of a wheat farmer that grew wheat on
the side to feed his livestock and family. The founding fathers set up
the U.S. Constitution to allow the federal government to cover needs
that could not be met by any state alone such as national defense,
etc.: "If a farmer could divert a portion of his/her crop to a side
use without paying homage to quotas that apply to the rest of his/her
crop, the whole system of commerce that allows the states to interact
with each other and the rest of the world could be made less stable."

This interstate commerce clause argument as strong as it is, fails
when faced with the current medical marijuana case before the courts.
First there is no legal commerce of the plant material called Cannabis
in the America. The DEA has made the argument that we should apply the
commerce clause argument to protect the market for the marijuana
synthetic pill that is now legal in the United States. The synthetic
marijuana pill is called marinol. The thing is, no-one is diverting
marinol from production to feed their cows and many if not most of the
patients that use cannabis do so because marinol has failed to help
them. Now why would a crude oil-based drug fail where a whole plant
succeeds? I digress. This will be a topic for another day.

Interestingly when the justices heard the DEA attempt to apply the
commerce argument here, a justice asked why under this much broader
interpretation wouldn't married couples be jailed for having sex that
is affecting the illegal commerce of prostitution? This is a great
point. Applying the Constitution in this way is a Pandora's box of
federal control of individual action.

There are other constitutional issues at stake. When I spoke with
Valerie Corral who helps run one of the best hospice medical marijuana
facilities in the world [W.A.M.M.] and is also personally vested in
the Supreme Court ruling, she said "When citizens require protection
from their own government and need to cloak in secrecy acts of
compassion for the sick and dying, you have found the very definition
of tyranny. Acts of tyranny by the government over the people will not
be tolerated by the people, not now, not ever."

Valerie said the central issue is substantive due process as protected
by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due
process of law."

Powerful stuff.

But what of Schedule 1 drugs and protecting the public and all that?
Schedule 1 in the federal code is a lie. When Tim Leary [the
step-father of LSD] fought the original marijuana law, the marijuana
tax act, he won in the Supreme Court on the grounds that the tax act
violated the U.S. Constitution by requiring self-incrimination.
Instead of the federal government learning its lesson, it created a
new omnibus law that was fair and balanced and then arbitrarily
included all the "soul-stealing" drugs from the reefer madness era
into a small brig included in the new law, Schedule 1.

You see the way the CSA works is all drugs must go through a FDA process
where they are given the least restrictive schedule number that applies,
and as the drug proves itself more dangerous, the scheduling is easily made
more restrictive as needed. There is no process to downgrade the schedule
of a drug since the scheduling is a one-way street. [Note: Mariniol is the
only drug to ever be down-scheduled from Schedule 2 to Schedule 3 since the
creation of the CSA.] Marijuana advocates have found themselves in the
netherworld of proving marijuana as not dangerous ever since 1970. For the
record you cannot prove a negative.

So where does all this leave legal Virginia medical marijuana users
who are currently awaiting the Supreme Court decision? Well, the
Virginia Court of Appeals ruled our law was active and protected
patients in 1999, and the federal government has never challenged it.
So if the Supreme Court rules against Raich et al., then the Virginia
state police will be asked to protect Virginia citizens from an insane
and out of control federal drug police force. The state legislature
can help a lot by rewording the law to help better protect patients
from the DEA, but I am not holding my breath on that one.

We will live, we will see.