Federal appellate judges here ruled Wednesday that a terminally ill woman using marijuana was not immune to federal prosecution simply because of her condition, and in a separate case a federal judge dismissed most of the charges against a prominent advocate for the medicinal use of the drug.
The woman, Angel McClary Raich, says she uses marijuana on doctors’ recommendation to treat an inoperable brain tumor and a battery of other serious ailments. Ms. Raich, 41, asserts that the drug effectively keeps her alive, by stimulating appetite and relieving pain, in a way that prescription drugs do not.
“It’s not every day in this country that someone’s right to life is taken from them,” said Ms. Raich, appearing frail during a news conference in Oakland, where she lives. “Today you are looking at someone who really is walking dead.”
In 2002, she and three other plaintiffs sued the government, seeking relief from federal laws outlawing marijuana.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that while they sympathized with Ms. Raich’s plight and had seen “uncontroverted evidence” that she needed marijuana to survive, she lacked the legal grounds to exempt herself from federal law.
Eleven states have medical marijuana laws on the books, and the New Mexico Legislature is poised to approve a medical marijuana bill there, with the support of Gov. Bill Richardson. Medical-marijuana advocates estimate more than 100,000 Americans use the drug to treat medical conditions.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, in a 1996 ballot measure, Proposition 215. That measure set off a decade-long fight over a variety of legal issues surrounding marijuana, including state rights and “common law necessity” defenses like the one Ms. Raich was trying to use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15marijuana.html?ex=1331611200&en=6f1d8b082954d6f0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
The woman, Angel McClary Raich, says she uses marijuana on doctors’ recommendation to treat an inoperable brain tumor and a battery of other serious ailments. Ms. Raich, 41, asserts that the drug effectively keeps her alive, by stimulating appetite and relieving pain, in a way that prescription drugs do not.
“It’s not every day in this country that someone’s right to life is taken from them,” said Ms. Raich, appearing frail during a news conference in Oakland, where she lives. “Today you are looking at someone who really is walking dead.”
In 2002, she and three other plaintiffs sued the government, seeking relief from federal laws outlawing marijuana.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that while they sympathized with Ms. Raich’s plight and had seen “uncontroverted evidence” that she needed marijuana to survive, she lacked the legal grounds to exempt herself from federal law.
Eleven states have medical marijuana laws on the books, and the New Mexico Legislature is poised to approve a medical marijuana bill there, with the support of Gov. Bill Richardson. Medical-marijuana advocates estimate more than 100,000 Americans use the drug to treat medical conditions.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, in a 1996 ballot measure, Proposition 215. That measure set off a decade-long fight over a variety of legal issues surrounding marijuana, including state rights and “common law necessity” defenses like the one Ms. Raich was trying to use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15marijuana.html?ex=1331611200&en=6f1d8b082954d6f0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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