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US: Web: Token Justice
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1066/a01.html
Newshawk: http://www.cannabisnews.com/
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 26 Jul 2004
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2004 Independent Media Institute
Contact: letters@alternet.org
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1451
Author: Steve Kubby, AlterNet
Note: Steve Kubby has written two books on drug policy reform and currently
serves as the National Director of the American Medical Marijuana
Association. http://americanmarijuana.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/kubby.htm (Kubby, Steve)
TOKEN JUSTICE
By continuing to target medical pot patients, the federal government turns
its back on millions of voters, the wishes of the dying and the authority of
the courts.
The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000
when researchers in Madrid Spain announced they had destroyed incurable
brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the most psychoactive
ingredient in cannabis.
Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no
major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and
UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000. Why has this vitally important
information been suppressed while the media regularly trumpet any possible
breakthrough in cancer research?
The Madrid study wasn't the first time that THC has been administered to
tumor-bearing animals. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of
Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health in order
to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead
that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and
breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. Since then, dozens of other
peer-reviewed scientific studies have confirmed that THC and other
canabinoids shrink tumors, cut off their blood supply and may even program
cancer cells to die.
Because news of such advances in our understanding of medical marijuana has
been suppressed, serious opposition still exists within the law enforcement
community. They claim that the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 was some sort
of hoax, or worse, not a law to be obeyed because federal marijuana laws
trump state laws.
As a result, seven years after voters approved Prop. 215, sick, disabled
and dying people are still being arrested, jailed, humiliated and
bankrupted. An ideology of zero tolerance has deprived medical marijuana
patients not only of justice but of life itself.
Contrary to assertions by police and US officials, federal law ought not to
trump state medical marijuana laws, according to the 9th Circuit Court
decision on December 16, 2003. In that decision, the Court found that "the
appellants have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on their claim
that, as applied to them, the CSA [Controlled Substances Act of 1970] is an
unconstitutional exercise of Congress' Commerce Clause authority."
On May 14, 2004, District Court Judge Martin J. Jenkins acted upon this
decision by the 9th Circuit Court and granted a preliminary injunction
against the federal government, thereby protecting the medical marijuana
rights of the two patients who are suing the government in this case.
Just one month later, in the case of County of Santa Cruz et al. v.
Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel issued a temporary injunction
barring the federal government from raiding the marijuana gardens of the
Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, or WAMM.
The ruling allows the collective to resume cultivation free from the fear of
further federal prosecution. This relief comes 18 months after a brutal
Drug Enforcement Administration raid on WAMM in Santa Cruz, and a year after
the collective's seriously ill members filed suit against the federal
government to stop the law enforcement harassment.
Law enforcement and prosecutors also claim that patients dragged before the
courts possess "too much for personal use." However, Proposition 215 set
only one medical-marijuana possession limit, and that limit is "for personal
medical use."
In 2002, the California Supreme Court affirmed this quantity limit in People
v. Mower. There, the court clearly held that the only quantity limit or
requirement in Proposition 215 is "for personal medical use."
But how much is too much? How much would be too much if your life depended
on it?
Most narcotics officers claim that more than a few ounces of marijuana per
month would be more than is necessary for personal use. In contrast, the US
government allows their legally licensed patients to consume a pound per
month. In Canada, patients such as myself are licensed to grow and consume
up to two pounds per month. Law enforcement refuses to accept these levels
of medical usage, but patients can and do consume these amounts of cannabis
and still lead productive lives. Indeed, many need it to be able to live at
all.
If respect for the law is to mean anything in our society, our elected
officials must set aside their zero tolerance ideology and uphold
California's medical marijuana law - exactly as it was written and passed by
the people of California. Elected officials should begin tomorrow to
implement the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 by taking the following four
specific actions:
1. Stop arresting sick people. Don't authorize budgets or federal grants
that will be used against sick people. Adopt and implement the Mower
Decision to protect sick people from arrest.
2. Stop treating sick people like criminals. According to the Mower
Decision, bona fide medical marijuana patients are entitled to a special
hearing to establish that they have a recommendation or approval to use
medical marijuana from a licensed physician. Unless police have clear
evidence of actual sales, it is unlawful and immoral to arrest marijuana
growers who make claims of medical use.
3. Stop forcing sick people into the black market. Demand that the federal
government take action on the petition filed by Jon Gettman with the Drug
Enforcement Administration on July 27, 1995, and reschedule marijuana from a
Schedule I to a Schedule III. That action alone would solve many of the
problems and concerns voiced by law enforcement and allow patients to go
directly to their pharmacist to obtain their medicine.
4. Start prosecuting those who violate the rights of sick people. Elected
officials must provide legal protection for sick and dying patients from
illegal arrests and prosecutions. To uphold the law, officials must see to
it that police and prosecutors are held accountable for violating the
medical marijuana rights of patients, caregivers and physicians.
Make no mistake; this issue is no more about marijuana than the Boston Tea
Party was a
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