Supreme Court Rules Against Medical Marijuana

[ylexot]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

This is an interesting case because it is more about federal law vs. state law than it is about medical marijuana. The article doesn't say much about why the six justices voted against, but did have some interesting quotes from the three dissenters...Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Clarence Thomas!

 

[vraiblonde]

I don't understand the whole medical marijuana scam. I've smoked a lot of pot in my day and I don't remember it ever being a pain reliever. Heroin, sure. Coke, you bet. But pot? Go get high and stub your toe, then tell me it does anything for pain. Stoners just use it as an excuse to smoke up legally.

I might actually go for ALL drug laws being a state law instead of a federal one. But it should be by referendum, not just some judge or politician deciding for everyone. It always sounds good in theory to let people kill themselves with drugs if they want to. But then you have all these druggies hanging around and it becomes a public nuisance, just like if you had drunks hanging around everywhere.

Plus, I'm against anything that makes people stupider than they already are.

 

[FromTexas]

Damnit! I got to stop trying to catch Glaucoma now.


Vrai, its not that its a pain killer...its for other reasons. Marijuana relieves the pressure build up on the eye from glaucoma. For cancer patients, it helps them eat after chemo when their stomach is so messed up they can't keep stuff down easy. It makes them hungry (no chit, eh?) and allows them to get dow food (also outside of chemo...during just bad cancer spells).

 

[vraiblonde]

Marijuana relieves the pressure build up on the eye from glaucoma.

I'd be interested in the biology behind that. I know that smoking pot makes your eyes bloodshot - I assumed that was from broken blood vessels caused by increased pressure. But that doesn't jibe with marijuana relieving the pressure.

I can see where smoking would increase their appetite, but why would it help with nausea? And there are other drugs that do that, not just pot, so the point is moot as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Chain729]

Actually, I wake up in pain every morning and go to bed in pain every night. When I did smoke, it didn't relieve pain directly, but it did help me forget about it- and to forget just about eveything else.

I'll have to pull the research again (at home somewhere), and I forget the president's name, but the whole "War on Drugs" is just funny. Pretty much eveything they say about weed is the exact oppossite of what's stated in the document prepared by the committy, that was appointed by the same president that started the whole thing.

Of course, some things are true (their can't be anything good about smoke inhalation), but things like the moral impact, weed consumption making people violent, or it being a "gateway" drug is just stupid.

 

[Chain729]

I'd be interested in the biology behind that. I know that smoking pot makes your eyes bloodshot - I assumed that was from broken blood vessels caused by increased pressure. But that doesn't jibe with marijuana relieving the pressure.

I can see where smoking would increase their appetite, but why would it help with nausea? And there are other drugs that do that, not just pot, so the point is moot as far as I'm concerned.

They're are other things that can increase your appetite too.

Forgot to add: The biggest reason I'm all for legalizing it is simply because I don't believe in moral laws. If I'm not directly hurting you, your family or your stuff, why do you care what I do?

 

[vraiblonde]

Forgot to add: The biggest reason I'm all for legalizing it is simply because I don't believe in moral laws. If I'm not directly hurting you, your family or your stuff, why do you care what I do?

Drug laws aren't moral laws - they're health and public safety laws. Actually, the history of marijuana and how it came to be illegal is a fascinating study of how a powerful businessman used his media outlet to skew public perception for his own gain.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

[Chain729]

Drug laws aren't moral laws - they're health and public safety laws. Actually, the history of marijuana and how it came to be illegal is a fascinating study of how a powerful businessman used his media outlet to skew public perception for his own gain.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

True. I do consider the majority of "health and public safety" laws to be moral laws. I consider chosing to enact laws that are designed to save stupid people from themselves moral decisions. For the record, I don't believe in having morals, simply for the sake of having morals.

What's next? Outlaw the eating of red meat because it increases the risk of heart-attack? Tell you what, if we're going to outlaw drugs that can make you "high", lets add: alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and Aleve Cold & Sinus. Honestly, I know of at least one person that has gotten high off of one of the aformentioned drugs at one point or another.

 

[mAlice]

Can you say "pharmaceutical lobbyist"?

 

[vraiblonde]

What's next? Outlaw the eating of red meat because it increases the risk of heart-attack?

Don't give them any ideas

But your analogy is incorrect. Take prostitution, for example. We can argue that it's a moral law and not a public health law BUT what about the guy who picks up a dose from the local hooker, then goes home to give it to his wife or girlfriend? In that case, it's no different than someone who contracts any other communicable disease and proceeds to pass it along.

Plus it's always amazing to me that the people who complain about cigarette smoke and its second-hand effects are the very same ones who are proponents of marijuana legalization. It makes no sense.

 

[Cletus_Vandam]

Found this to be insteresting. Suprising how it received no attention then.

http://www.medmjscience.org/Pages/reports/jyp1.bhtml

 

[Bruzilla]

If I'm not directly hurting you, your family or your stuff, why do you care what I do?

There's no way that you can use dibilitating drugs and not hurt me, my family, or my stuff. I would have no issues with drug users who wanted to get stoned and suffer the consequences, but that's never the case. Drugs effect performance on the job, which means drug users cause errors that drive up costs, a direct impact. They also end up losing jobs, which means that society has to support them... another direct impact. Stoned people don't feel that getting stoned means giving up your priviledge to drive (or fly, or boat, or shoot, or anything else), so they add to the threat on the roads... another direct impact to my family and I. Now, double the number of girls who get drunk at parties and end up pregnant to account for all the stoners getting knocked up, and you have another group of people lining up at the public trough to get help for their self-imposed problem... help that I am then expected to help pay for.

I know a couple serious pot heads, guys who have been smoking for 20+ years, and the drug us definately not harmless when used gratuitously over decades. This is rarely the case right now due to laws, but once the laws are lifted, they'll be the norm. So then we'll have another group to add to habitual smokers and drinkers, who require more public aid to help them with their addiction, medical costs (since they can't hold a job), and eventual downfall... all of which pose direct impacts on me.

 

[mAlice]

There's no way that you can use dibilitating drugs and not hurt me, my family, or my stuff. I would have no issues with drug users who wanted to get stoned and suffer the consequences, but that's never the case. Drugs effect performance on the job, which means drug users cause errors that drive up costs, a direct impact. They also end up losing jobs, which means that society has to support them... another direct impact. Stoned people don't feel that getting stoned means giving up your priviledge to drive (or fly, or boat, or shoot, or anything else), so they add to the threat on the roads... another direct impact to my family and I. Now, double the number of girls who get drunk at parties and end up pregnant to account for all the stoners getting knocked up, and you have another group of people lining up at the public trough to get help for their self-imposed problem... help that I am then expected to help pay for.

Funny.

 

[Cletus_Vandam]

Quick question...

For all those who are so opposed to legalizing MJ...

Do you drink alcoholic beverages? Just wondering. Because IMO the only difference is this Country's viewpoint on legal/illegal.

Alcohol and MJ can both, when used in excess, cause the problems that Bru mentioned above.

 

[aps45819]

Plus, I'm against anything that makes people stupider than they already are.

and yet you continue to run this web site

 

[BadGirl]

I wish I had some pot right now. It might make me less grumpy.

 

[ylexot]

and yet you continue to run this web site

ZING!

 

[Bruzilla]

For all those who are so opposed to legalizing MJ...

Do you drink alcoholic beverages? Just wondering. Because IMO the only difference is this Country's viewpoint on legal/illegal.

Alcohol and MJ can both, when used in excess, cause the problems that Bru mentioned above.

The legalized status of alcohol and tobacco are always the first point of argument for those who want to legalize pot, and it always makes me worried that people who have this "in for a penny, in for a pound" mentality have the right to vote.

To me, saying that drugs should be legalized because alchohol and tobacco, with all of their associated problems, are legal is like saying "well... I'm blind and deaf, so I guess I should go ahead and destroy my nose so I can't smell too." or "well, I've already got two broken legs, so I might as well break an arm too... what the heck."

 

[Ken King]

The one thing that gets me about this is that men of science are being prevented by men of law from prescribing something for ailing people that based on the best medical judgment just might actually help some people.

Many illegal types of narcotics have beneficial medicinal uses and when used legally as a medicine carry no criminal weight, why is this different? No FDA stamp of approval.

 

[vraiblonde]

The one thing that gets me about this is that men of science are being prevented by men of law from prescribing something for ailing people that based on the best medical judgment just might actually help some people.

Oh bullcrap. There's nothing in pot that isn't available already for medicinal purposes. These people just want to get high, that's all.

And if they legalize it for medicinal purposes, pretty soon every pothead in America will be sick :coughcough: so they can get them some smoke.