I’m going to go out on a limb, risk being unpopular (heavens…), and say, without hesitation, that this medical marijuana ruling from the Supreme Court was the correct and only defensible decision given current law and the case presented. Period.
Before you get pissed off, read on. This is not a rant against medicinal marijuana. It’s aimed more at people who bitch and moan and whine about the law without bothering to learn how it works…
First, the Supreme Court did not “rule against medicinal marijuana”. It simply said that current US law does not make an excpetion for medical necessity. Which it doesn’t. In fact, the Controlled Substances Act SPECIFICALLY prohibits medicinal use…
Second, the Supreme Court did not “outlaw medicinal marijuana”, no matter what the BBC (which should know better) reported. It was already illegal. The Supreme Court simply confirmed that fact and acknowledged that it would continue to be illegal, at least until laws are changed…
What a lot of people seem to forget is that the question here was not “is the medicinal use of marijuana a good thing?”. The question was “is the medicinal use of marijuana justified under the current laws?”. You can argue all day long that it SHOULD be legal (and I might very well be inclined to join you), but that’s not the point…
Nor is the oft-argued assumption that a majority of Americans probably support medicinal use. Public opinion is completely irrelevant. The Supreme Court is not an elected, democratic body. Its purpose is to determine whether an activity is OK given currently-enacted laws. Or to decide whether currently-enacted laws past muster under the Constitution.
If public opinion were a valid argument in the Supreme Court, we would most likely still have poll taxes and segregated schools. OK, we still have segregated schools, but at least they’re theoretically illegal…
Whether the law is right or wrong was not a concern. If there were no specific mention of medicinal use in the law, it MIGHT have been possible to invoke a medical necessity argument. And it may still be possible. But with the case as made, and the law as written, there was no way the Court could logically have ruled any other way…
Jeff Jones of the Oakland Cannabis Cooperative says the decision was “wrong-headed” and warns that laws will change over the coming years, invalidating the decision. He’s right, even though he evidently doesn’t know exactly why…
I don’t smoke pot and I generally don’t think it’s a very good thing to do so in most cases, in pretty much the same way I don’t think drinking and smoking cigarettes (which I have been known to do) are healthy. However, I do support legalizing medicinal marijuana and I’m not generally in favor of controlling drug abuse through criminal penalties. But the Supreme Court was right on the money today…
Look on it as a call to action…
