MEDICAL POT SCORES VICTORY

The New York Times Said In An Editorial On Thursday:

A federal appeals court in California this week struck an important blow
for medical marijuana, and for the First Amendment.

It held that the government cannot revoke the licenses of doctors who
recommend marijuana to their patients.

The federal government should now abandon its misguided policy of targeting
doctors and sick people to fight marijuana use.

The ruling gives new life to the medical marijuana initiative, also known
as Proposition 215, which California voters passed in 1996.

The law permits seriously ill people to use marijuana on the advice of
their physicians, and it says that doctors may not be punished for
recommending marijuana to their patients.

Shortly after it became law, the federal government announced it would use
its authority under the Controlled Substances Act to revoke the
prescription licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana to a patient.

The appeals court rightly held that the policy strikes at "core First
Amendment interests of doctors and patients," by interfering with doctors'
ability to give honest and candid medical advice. If the government wants
to go after those who buy and sell marijuana, it should go after them
directly and not suppress protected speech as a back-door means of
enforcing drug laws.

The decision, in addition to vindicating the speech rights of doctors and
patients, should prompt federal and state governments to reconsider their
policies on medical marijuana.

The war on drugs surely has better targets than cancer patients and
terminally ill people who use marijuana, on the advice of doctors, to
reduce their pain.