Supremes Rule Medical Marijuana Illegal

This is disastrous on so many different levels and, at its core, one must wonder how much of the decision is based on the incredible financing the pharmaceutical company does in Washington.

Again and again, in many areas of the countries, voters have decided that citizens who feel that pot helps them overcome nausea and other health issues should be allowed to have the drug. As a former Hospice volunteer who also worked with cancer patients, I've seen people who managed to survive chemotherapy because pot helped them. In the 80s, I saw older Americans who had never conceived of buying a street drug going out into bad neighborhoods trying to buy the drug for a seriously ill spouse. It was demeaning, demoralizing, and the best you could hope for was not to be arrested.

Now, of course, pot isn't a cure-all. And yes, there is no doubt that some people abuse it. But our abuse of drugs doesn't begin and end with this weed - and that's what marijuana is - a weed. The government has singled it out for reasons both based on faked morality and in allegiance to the drug companies that finance them. There are politicians who are rabid against pot who manage to feel that tobacco companies are "persecuted". Eh? I've known people - myself included not so long ago - who could not break the addiction of nicotine while I don't think I've ever met anyone who couldn't survive without pot.

Alcohol remains the single most abused substance and it's perfectly legal. Unlike marijuana, it won't reduce nausea, alleviate certain types of pain, and IS documented to cause more serious side effects with regular use and abuse.

Instead, the high court is basically giving a blank check to the Bushies to go after doctors who prescribe the drug, individuals who grow only for their own medical consumption, and any "compassionate" organizations who try to make the drug available to those with designated need. This may be the single worst decision the court has made since it pushed Bush into the White House in December 2000 and, like that decision, is completely out of touch with voters and real life.

The irony? Most of the people I've known in my life who grew marijuana for their own use and talked freely about using it were people whose positions allowed them to make rules against other people possessing and using it: cops, Republicans, and at least one lawmaker. Their argument was that it was OK for them to use it and break the law because their need was legitimate and they "knew how to handle it", but the laws were needed because other people weren't as smart as they were. I doubt many of the rest of us would feel it was appropriate to support a law affecting everyone if we knew we would exempt ourselves from that law.

What's worse? It was the so-called liberal justices who ruled this way. Rehnquist, Thomas, and O'Connor dissented. Go figure.

But aside from marijuana specifically, this is disturbing because it means more of the disastrous Drug War which has done nothing but cost lives, drive up prices, and encourage a system where a few people are punished severely but the worst offenders do nothing but profit mightily. There really must be some saner way to do things than ill-advised and horrifically implemented programs like the War on Drugs. Huge dealers do little time, while small personal use people may go to jail for five, ten, or twenty years. The world is less safe because of the drug war which has done nothing but drive up demand and little to reduce supply.