Even if the right belongs to the individual user (whether of contraceptives or medical marijuana), the distributor is an essential prerequisite to the exercise of that right, and one who is also well situated to go to court and vindicate it. In this case in particular, it was obviously easier for the Cannabis Cooperative to go to Court, than for terminally ill patients to devote their limited energies to doing so.
-- Sherry Colb
This time of year provides various opportunities to comment on anniversaries and the like, including Justice John Paul Stevens 89th birthday being today, but today will focus on "420" -- the marijuana symbol. Of course, there is some overlap -- Stevens wrote a concurring (referenced above) and main opinion for two major pot cases that reached the Supreme Court. One involved a necessity offense, the other the direct question if Congress has power under the Commerce Clause to ban even medicinal use of marijuana.*
Obama's discomfort with a popular online question involving marijuana aside, a change in our drug policy is something that has bipartisan appeal. Here are three views from people some might be surprised about:
Well, my next guest knows what it’s like to be on the frontlines of fighting the war on drugs in this country and doesn’t think marijuana is a laughing matter. Norm Stamper is a thirty-four-year police officer who retired as Seattle’s chief of police in 2000. His successor, Gil Kerlikowske, has just been nominated to be President Obama’s drug czar. But Norm Stamper supports legalization of marijuana. He’s an advisory board member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, known as NORML. He is a speaker for the 10,000-member Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
-- Amy Goodman
At about the time the [National Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences] study got underway, the British House of Lords - a body not known for its wild and crazy views - opened public hearings on the medical benefits and drawbacks of cannabis. Like the IOM, the Lords concluded that "cannabis almost certainly does have genuine medical applications, especially in treating the painful muscular spasms and other symptoms of MS and in the control of other forms of pain."
-- Judge Kozinski
I have not spoken of the cost to our society of the astonishing legal weapons available now to policemen and prosecutors; of the penalty of forfeiture of one's home and property for violation of laws which, though designed to advance the war against drugs, could legally be used -- I am told by learned counsel -- as penalties for the neglect of one's pets. I leave it at this, that it is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.
-- William F. Buckley
Attorney General Holder announced a policy of respecting state medicinal marijuana laws. But, see here. That would be a small first step. As suggested by the footnote, there is chance for some play in the joints, but also some real policy change will be necessary to really fix things. As GG discusses here and elsewhere, the Portugal de-criminalization policy is working. And, that would leave open civil penalties and actions, plus still leave open criminal penalties against sale.
Obama's main man said on the Sunday talk shows last weekend that even those behind the torture memoranda will not be targeted. Will people who smoke pot?
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* In the first, Stevens concurred separately to promote a more narrow ruling, one that left open a necessity claim for users, the case concerning distribution. But, again, how does one get such a product? And, distributors for contraceptives and abortion had standing to defend users, so why is this area different?
Colb elides past the argument -- that Stevens shared on that question -- that the federal statute itself made a clear policy choice to ban distribution for this drug in particular. OTOH, if so, Stevens concurring opinion has less force -- why would such a policy not apply to individuals too? Allegedly, it is after all in part for their medicinal benefit.
Stevens heart can be in the right place -- see his concurrence here -- but the dissent in that case suggests sometimes the middle path is not only unaccepted, but unacceptable.