Thursday, October 14, 2004

Attorneys General Assert States' Rights This article in the SFGate notes that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sided with two medical marijuana patients Wednesday in their U.S. Supreme Court battle with the Bush administration, arguing that patients who use locally grown marijuana in states that allow it should be protected from federal drug enforcement. "The federal government has limited authority to interfere with state legislation enacted for the protection of citizen health, safety and welfare, '' Lockyer's office said in papers filed with the court on behalf of California, Maryland and Washington, three of the 11 states with medical marijuana laws. This is good news. Perhaps a little more surprising, however, is the support that has come from other quarters, demonstrating that the ramifications of this case could be huge. The states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi have also filed briefs against the government. Are you trying to remember when those states passed medical marijuana laws? Don't strain yourself. They haven't, and aren't likely to do so anytime soon. "This is not a case about drug-control policy or (patients') fundamental rights,'' said lawyers from the Alabama attorney general's office. "The point is that, as a sovereign member of the federal union, California is entitled to make for itself the tough policy choices that affect its citizens.'' Strong words, but it's important to remember that there is an essential element to federalism that must not be lost. As Justice Brandeis said: ...to stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility.  Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious  consequences to the nation.  It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. [Thanks to Scott, again] 9:00:44 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Scott Burns moves his lips Scott knows I love it when the Drug Czar's office gets trashed, so he sent me this gem from the Missoula Independent. Everyone has heard the joke about how you can tell when operatives from the Bush administration are lying -- their lips are moving. ... Moving his lips, [deputy drug czar Scott] Burns got right to the point with his first lie: "I'm not here to tell anyone how to vote," he said, looking straight into the TV cameras -- and then proceeded to tell Montanans that voting for medical marijuana would be a terrible thing. ... Burns said we now "look to experts to tell us what is safe" and claimed: "None of them say smoking this weed is medicine." Unfortunately, the drug czar must be too busy flying around the country on taxpayer money doing the federal government's political dirty work to take the time to read the conclusions of medical authorities from all over the world who have found just the opposite -- that marijuana is indeed efficacious in treating a number of ailments. ... Rather than get bogged down in messy medical details that disprove his propaganda, Burns simply went on to assure reporters that in every state that had approved the use of medical marijuana, drug use among young people had increased. But an on-going annual study in California found marijuana use by ninth-graders has dropped 45 percent since 1996, when the state legalized medical marijuana. Instead of interfering in Montana's elections, the drug czar should have used his federally funded plane ticket to visit Canada. If his preposterous claims were correct, the streets of our northern neighbor should be clogged with stoner youths, barely able to ambulate because of their access to potent B.C. bud. But as many Montanans know from firsthand experience, Canada's legalization of medical marijuana has produced no such drastic effects. ... Come Nov. 2, Montanans should tell the drug czar to take his lies back to the White House, vote for I-148 and bring legal relief to our most seriously ill citizens. Oh yeah. Montanans are an independent bunch. 8:37:25 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []