U.S. Supreme Court overules states and makes marijuana for medicinal use illegal

A U.S. Supreme Court has decreed that the Federal Government has the power to prevent sick patients from smoking home-grown marijuana that a doctor recommended to relieve chronic pain. The 6 to 3 ruling by a divided court is a major setback for the medical use of marijuana.

This now means the Federal Government can enforce a federal law prohibiting the cultivation, possession and use of medical marijuana even where it is legal under state law. As many as nine states allow the medical use of marijuana.

According to Justice John Paul Stevens the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, was a valid exercise of federal power by the U.S. Congress "even as applied to the troubling facts of this case" which involved two seriously ill California women.

Both the womens doctors recommended marijuana for their pain, Angel Raich has an inoperable brain tumor and other medical problems while Diane Monson suffers from severe back pain.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents destroyed six marijuana plants seized from Monson's home in 2002.

Monson cultivates her own marijuana while two of Raich's caregivers grow the marijuana and provide it to her free of charge.

After the verdict Raich of Oakland, California said despite losing this battle they still have the opportunity " to win this war". She says if she were to were to stop using marijuana she would die.

Judge Stevens said the case was difficult because of the strong arguments by the two women that they will suffer irreparable harm because marijuana has a valid therapeutic purpose. A congressional enquiry came to the contrary conclusion.

He stated that the question before the court was not whether it was wise to enforce the federal law in these circumstances, but only whether Congress has the power to adopt such a law.

Stevens said the democratic process might be more important than the legal challenges and added that supporters of medical marijuana "may one day be heard in the halls of Congress."

The ruling was a victory for the Bush administration, which appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court in California ruled for the two women.

The administration had estimated that as many as 100,000 Californians would use marijuana for medical purposes if the Supreme Court ruled for the two women.

Although White House drug czar John Walters says the decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue, supporters of the cause disagree.

Allen Hopper of the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Law Reform Project says that the power of state governments to enact and enforce state medical marijuana laws is not affected by the Supreme Court's ruling.

According to Dan Abrahamson of the Drug Policy Alliance the federal government still has a choice, it either wastes taxpayer dollars by going after sick and dying patients or goes after individuals who pose a real danger to society.

But Government lawyers said it would be difficult to enforce the nation's drug laws if there was an exception for medical marijuana, and Judge Stevens agrees with the government's argument saying an exception for medical marijuana would leave a "gaping hole" in the federal drug law.

He says the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states included the power to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with California law.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas do not concurr with him, they say that the case exemplifies the role of states as laboratories, and by relying on the abstract assertions of Congress, the court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use. She says the overreaching action stifles an expressed choice by some states to regulate medical marijuana differently.