Why is it okay, according to the Supreme Court, for the Federal government to prevent states from allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to relieve patients’ pain, but not okay to prevent states from allowing doctors to prescribe medicines so patients can kill themselves?
I’m sure there’s some lawyerly explanation for this, but still…
There was an interesting series on the history of narcotics on the History channel a couple years ago that highlighted the racial aspect of the legal system’s relationship with recreational drugs. One example being that cocaine wasn’t outlawed until a number of sensational stories began appearing in the press about coke-crazed negroes raping and attacking white women.
Or how some American Indian nations can use peyote in their religious ceremonies but rastafarians cannot use marijuana for their religious practice. Makes me wonder how unexamined racist assumptions may underlie the tortured logic of decisions like the these.
The Court’s logic on this one is not really tortured at all. The question is whether federal drug laws proscribe this sort of use of medication. In the case of marijuana, it is explictly criminalized in our federal drug laws, and the California medical marijauna laws sought to invade an area, which had been preempted by the federal government. Here, the federal drug laws allowed the use of these drugs, but the Justice Department sought to expand the laws to prohibit a use that was not imagined by those that drafted the federal laws. Physician assisted suicide is probably an unwise policy choice, but it has not been prohibited by federal law. If Congress is unhappy with the state of affairs, they can pass legislation that explictly prohibits the use of legal medication to advance death.
See – lawyerly chicanery! 😉
Thanks for the clarification, a.
I dunno still seems pretty tortured to me.
A Thinking Reed 
Leave a reply to Anonymous Cancel reply