Posted on 11/28/2004 9:20:33 AM PST by Ellesu
I agree totally. If slow release THC will work, and she can tolerate it that way - then go for it. However, if the best response she gets is through smoking it, then merciful God in Heaven, let her smoke it, anytime she wants, and as much as it takes to give her relief!
Look buddy - I will go along with the recommendation of a Medical physician. I do not personally view smoked opium as some sort of "benefit," especially if someone is in terrible pain. What absurdity! I will agree with whatever a physician finally decides is the best course of treatment for the patient. If a physician decides smoked opium is the best course of pain relief for a 12 year, a 22 year old, or a 92 year old, then let that decision be between the physician and the patient. Now quit bothering me with your silly hypotheticals.
The potheads couldn't get Marijuana legal so they invented the medicinal use fallacy.
I kind of take it as gospel the the government is generally run by fools.
So exactly what's wrong with wanting to be high? Is it the "you're going to hell if you don't suffer" thing? Actually, her use of marijuana is no business of yours or the governments. It's only the desire to control people that drives the WOD, added to the benefits the drug warriors get. Do no harm.
"Where did you get that she had earlier injected illegal drugs? The only way to get HepC or HIV by drug use is by contaminated needles, correct?"
No. You can get it from feces, blood, etc.
Doesn't matter. This case isn't about marijuana, it's about federalism. It's not a question of whether marijuana is good medicine, it's a question as to whether or not the federal government can regulate private, non-commercial, intra-state, charitable agriculture grown for medical purposes, based on the federal government's Constitutional right to regulate "interstate commerce." The answer, from a Constitutional viewpoint, does not depend on whether or not marijuana gets people high, or whether it is in fact good medicine. The answer depends on whether such cultivation of marijuana affects interstate commerce to a non-trivial degree. The answer is "no." The cultivation and free distribution of medical marijuana has approximately zero affect on interstate commerce. The federal government has no business regulating it.
If you think it should be outlawed, try to convince Californians to outlaw it--we get to make this decision, not Congress.
Is there a pothead agenda at work here? Sure. But that doesn't matter. The Constitution is far more important. There is a federalist agenda here, too. The federal government does not have general police powers. If you think Ashcroft is right about this, you are giving him general police powers, in violation of the Constitution's limits on the federal government.
If you think the federal government should have such police powers (to fight terrorism and potheads and whatnot), then write up a Constitutional Amedment and start a political campaign to get it ratified. Because that's how we change the Constitution in this country...
I'd just reiterate that if Raich wins this case, it won't mean an ends to federal drug laws. Commerce (selling drugs) can still be declared illegal. Drugs generally end up crossing state borders, and the drug trade operates at an international (not just interstate) level, so even intrastate drug sales can be outlawed by Congress (because selling drugs in one place affects their price/availability in another). If SCOTUS rules in favor of Raich, it would not mean a radical change in our nation's drug laws--just that states can decide these medical issues for themselves, so long as the drugs are cultivated/manufactured in-state and then donated to the patients.
This is classic states' rights federalism without the pointy white hood. True conservatives should be celebrating this.
It's just a weed in the garden. It's not evil, in and of itself. It's no different than the argument people make about guns. Guns are not evil, people who use them to commit crimes are. People who use marijuana to kill pain or to relieve glaucoma or to stimulate appetite in wasting syndromes are different than the typical pothead.
No. You can get it from feces, blood, etc.
True, but I was referring to the method of transmission in illegal drug use. Isn't it almost exclusively from needles contaminated with tainted blood?
OxyContin, Rush Limbaugh's drug of choice, is a very strong narcotic pain reliever similar to morphine.
Yeah, I bet that's what Ms. Raich said also. But after "nearly three dozen doctor-prescribed medications", she found a "doctor" who would "recommend" marijuana.
According to Proposition 215, the doctor cannot be "punished or denied any right or privilege" for recommending marijuana -- such recommendation allowing the patient to grow their own and/or smoke marijuana.
I was simply asking if Proposition 215 was about opium rather than marijuana, would you go along? Seems to me your answer is yes (or more correctly, ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY).
Keep in mind, there will always be "Medical physicians" who will recommend anything, especially if there are no legal consequences. The two largest marijuana "recommenders" have been suspended by their respective medical boards.
Really?
Seems to me that the unbridled cultivation and free intrastate distribution of medical marijuana would have a major negative impact on the interstate commerce of Marinol and every other FDA approved drug for those illnesses.
Well, what is it? Do you make the decision, or is the Constitution far more important?
Because it can't be both.
The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution says that you don't get to make the decision.
Anyone who smokes pot and says she doesn't get high is a liar. She's continuously stoned. She claims it helps chronic pain?
No, it doesn't. Anyone who thinks it does has a different problem (in their head) I do suffer from chronic pain, and smoking pot does not help in the least. What it does help with is people who have trouble eating. (it gives you the munchies) A bad effect is it makes those who suffer from depression, MORE depressed, and overall, makes users lazy.
I think what some are considering "chronic pain" falls fall short of the meaning. "Psychological chronic pain" is probably a more accurate diagnosis. It exists only in their mind. I know alot of chronic pain sufferers, and I mean people with real chronic pain, from smashed joints, broken bones, and ruptured disc's, arthritis, cancer. None of them have found relief from smoking dope, other than 'it relax's them'. That may help muscle aches I suppose.
Then see your doctor and take oxycontin. that's what it is, and it's legal.
Exactamundo
It was/is used to settle the stomach of chemo patients and give them the 'munchies'.
The pain relief aspect of marijuana is for political consumption.
If the 'pain' story doesn't move the politicos, then cure for ingrown toenails is next.
People are stupid enough in their natural state, enhancing that state doesn't do them or society any good. No matter how you look at it, when you smoke dope, drink, you are intoxicated and should not be loose in public. Stay home and have smoke your brains out. But don't come to work, operate a car or be a public nuisance in your altered state.
Call it what you will, but in U.S. v. DARBY 312 U.S. 100 (1941), Justice Stone ruled:
"The power of Congress over interstate commerce 'is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed by the constitution.' Congress, following its own conception of public policy concerning the restrictions which may appropriately be imposed on interstate commerce, is free to exclude from the commerce articles whose use in the states for which they are destined it may conceive to be injurious to the public health, morals or welfare, even though the state has not sought to regulate their use."
Such regulation is not a forbidden invasion of state power merely because either its motive or its consequence is to restrict the use of articles of commerce within the states of destination and is not prohibited unless by other Constitutional provisions. It is no objection to the assertion of the power to regulate interstate commerce that its exercise is attended by the same incidents which attend the exercise of the police power of the states."
Yeah, that won't be far behind.
The best and the brightest generally to into private employment, and the Government gets the rest.
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