Appeals Court Hears Arguments on Medical Marijuana |
Posted by FoM on April 09, 2002 at 08:49:55 PT By Claire Booth Source: Contra Costa Times State and federal law clashed in an appellate courtroom Monday as attorneys argued over whether doctors have the right to recommend marijuana use under state law without punishment for violating U.S. drug statutes. The pivotal case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will affect medical marijuana laws in seven western states and likely have an impact on many more throughout the country. The issue arose after California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, which legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. The U.S. government appealed a federal district court judge's decision that authorities cannot punish marijuana-recommending physicians by revoking their licenses to prescribe other federally controlled substances. But under repeated questioning from a skeptical three-judge panel Monday, a government lawyer could not say how such a doctor recommendation would interfere with federal drug-law enforcement. Attorney Mark Stern maintained, however, that it is impossible to foresee all situations, and there might come a need for the federal government to investigate such incidents. "It's perfectly reasonable for the Justice Department to contemplate that there were going to be problems," Stern said. Under state law, doctors can advise certain patients about marijuana use and even recommend it. They do not write prescriptions, however, and patients are responsible for acquiring their own supply of the drug, which is often used by those with cancer or AIDS to quell nausea caused by treatment. The government's position is so vague, it is "unsustainable," argued attorney Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Policy Litigation Project. "There needs to be a clean line drawn," Boyd said. A doctor should not be held liable for a third-party transaction -- in this case, any arrangement between a patient and a marijuana supplier. Complete Title: Appeals Court Hears Arguments on Medical Marijuane Use Source: Contra Costa Times (CA) Related Articles & Web Sites: Medical Marijuana Information Links Judge Questions Bush Policy on Medical Pot Recommending Pot Sounds OK To 9th Circuit Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on April 09, 2002 at 13:23:54 PT:
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Let me repeat this phrase; it stands alone on it's own, as is, as far as I am concerned, the crux of the entire article: What gets less attention, however, is that the Society is accomplishing in the courts what Republicans canıt achieve politically. There is nothing like the Federalist Society on the left. Did you get that, friends? It is nothing less than the very same 'social engineering' via Good Ol' Boys network that "Conservatives" castigated "Liberals" for engaging in. And using non-democratic means of accomplishing what they'd be tarred-and-feathered for...or worse...if they tried it above board. [ Post Comment ] |
Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on April 09, 2002 at 13:16:00 PT:
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To quote Our Good Doctor: Why should a physician risk career and freedom treating someone of a political persuasion different than their own? Who would? Is this the type of society the Feds want? If so, they have no conception of the world they seek to create. It might appeal to the totalitarian minority, but to no one else. (Emphasis mine -k.) Indeed it is, Doc. Indeed it is... The Federalist Society The Conservative Cabal That's Transforming American Law By Jerry Landay http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html from the article: Who are they? With 25,000 members plus scores of close affiliates nationwide--including Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, and University of Chicago brain-boxes Richard Epstein and Frank Easterbrook (also a federal appellate judge)--the Federalist Society is quite simply the best-organized, best-funded, and most effective legal network operating in this country. Its rank-and-file include conservative lawyers, law students, law professors, bureaucrats, activists, and judges. They meet at law schools and function rooms across the country to discuss and debate the finer points of legal theory and substance on panels that often include liberals--providing friction, stimulus, and the illusion of balance. What gets less attention, however, is that the Society is accomplishing in the courts what Republicans canıt achieve politically. There is nothing like the Federalist Society on the left. The Societyıs origins can be traced back to 1979--the year before Ronald Reaganıs victory--when a legal scholar named Michael Horowitz published a tract on the public-interest law movement, exhorting conservatives to overturn a half-century of liberal dominance of the legal establishment. This could be done, he wrote, by indoctrinating or winning over succeeding generations of law students, lawyers, and judges. By definition, the campaign had to be rooted in the fertile ground of law schools. To Horowitzıs good fortune, Reagan was elected in 1980, and his administration set to work filling the sails of the Federalist movement. Horowitzıs concept was taken up with relish by senior members of the new Administration. They operated on two tracks--designed to insure that the Reagan Revolution would well outlast the Reagan Presidency. The first, to reclaim the Federal courts from liberals, swept an array of conservative scholars and judges from law schools and state courts onto the Federal bench: the likes of Robert Bork, Ralph Winter, Antonin Scalia, Richard Posner, Sandra Day OıConnor, and Anthony Kennedy. The second track was even more forward looking and involved the apprenticing of a new generation of conservative lawyer-intellectuals-under-30 to the Reagan apparat. This second track required fresh meat, which is where the Federalist Society came in. The founding chapters of the Society were established at Yale, where Bork taught before Reagan nominated him to the bench, and at the University of Chicago, where Scalia was faculty advisor and from whose ranks he would later recruit former student-Federalists to prestigious Supreme Court clerkships. Originally the chapters were little more than a debating circle and comfort station for young conservatives who felt themselves victimized by liberal persecution. The Societyıs executive director Eugene Meyer recalls of his experience at Yale Law School that "someone was writing 'fascistı on our posters, or taking them down. Then cooler faculty heads [such as Bork] channeled our angers and frustrations into organizational activity." Keen self-promoters, they made a mascot of James Madison (on the debatable grounds that he favored decentralized government in his later years) and took the name of Madisonıs 18th-century Federalist Party as their own. Note something interesting? They say they are for reduced governmental influence in our lives...yet are practically slavering to prosecute MMJ users...whose only real enemy is the government apparatus that these so-called Fedarlists purportedly disdain. They are supposed to be favoring State's Rights...but look what happens as soon as they get into power. [ Post Comment ] |
Comment #4 posted by FoM on April 09, 2002 at 10:12:40 PT |
I put this article on my personal home page. Where there's a will there's a way! Effort to Muzzle Pro-Pot Doctors Argued in Court [ Post Comment ] |
Comment #3 posted by lookinside on April 09, 2002 at 09:42:39 PT:
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My wife's specialist has recommended MMJ to only a handful of patients. She is very careful and VERY thorough. She tried every pharmaceutical option, including Marinol before giving my wife her recommendation. When my wife mentioned the possible legal ramifications(concerning the Klinton Administration's threats to doctors) this courageous MD said she would like to see any court question her methodology or recommendations. I think the feds would find themselves in over their heads. [ Post Comment ] |
Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo MD on April 09, 2002 at 09:17:18 PT:
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Should the court at any level rule against free speech between doctor and patient, there will be hell to pay. Why should a physician risk career and freedom treating someone of a political persuasion different than their own? Who would? Is this the type of society the Feds want? If so, they have no conception of the world they seek to create. It might appeal to the totalitarian minority, but to no one else. I, for one, will continue to inform my patients of the full range of available treatments for their condition. The legality or illegality of a given treatment is not the real issue. Education and freedom of expression are. [ Post Comment ] |
Comment #1 posted by FoM on April 09, 2002 at 08:57:04 PT |
I put this article on my personal web page since I can't post it directly. Here it is!
Judge Questions Bush Policy on Medical Pot [ Post Comment ] |
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