Use of medical marijuana threatened 
Fighting for humane health care 
By Daniel Starling
Green Party of New York State

The Supreme Court's recent 6-3 decision allows the federal government to prosecute medical marijuana users in 11 states that had legalized the prescription, distribution and use of cannabis. This spurred leaders of the Green Party of the United States (GP-US) to defend the sick through local legislation.

Greens have long defended the right of state and local governments to act in the best interests of their constituents who are suffering from AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other ailments. The Green Party is also working at the national level, urging Congress to reverse recent decisions.

"The Supreme Court, in upholding federal power to override state laws allowing medical marijuana, endorsed the growing attacks on civil liberties, federal usurpation of state and local law enforcement power and concentration of power in the executive branch, especially in the Justice Department," said Nan Garrett, a Georgia Green. 

"The war on drugs has all along been an effort to target and criminalize African-Americans, young people and other populations that have been disproportionately prosecuted and incarcerated," added Garrett. "The emphasis on marijuana, which does vastly less damage to health than alcohol and has a near-zero fatality rate, proves that marijuana prosecution has nothing to do with law or public health."

Greens around the country have worked to legalize marijuana for all uses, especially medical applications. Most of the medical community accept it as part of treatments for many long-term diseases. It took a veto from Congress to overturn Initiative 59 in Washington, D.C., which passed with a 69 percent approval after the Green and Statehood parties collected thousands of signatures to help ACT UP put medical marijuana on the ballot in 1998.

"The Supreme Court's liberal justices all voted for federal power to prosecute, while three of the most conservative justices dissented on the basis of states' rights, suggesting that the Court ignored considerations of public health," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the GP-US.
Since 1996, 11 states have legalized medical marijuana use: Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Eight of the 11 did so through Initiative 59. 

This summer, Congress could have protected patients with an amendment to a Justice Department spending bill that prohibited the department from spending any money to undermine state medical marijuana laws. The amendment, offered for the third year in a row, did not pass but got 161 votes, up from 94 votes in 1998. 

Activists are working out agreements with local governments and police to avoid prosecution of medical marijuana charges. In California, the Highway Patrol has agreed to stop taking cannabis from motorists who have a doctor's recommendation. This was mostly due to activists in Oakland pressuring Attorney General Bill Lockyer to send a memo to state law enforcement agencies reiterating that California law sanctions medical marijuana use.

In New York and most of the U.S., where efforts to create laws regulating medical marijuana are in limbo, local law enforcement continues to prosecute minor marijuana possession. Recently, a longtime NYC medical marijuana dispenser was pistol-whipped and AIDS patients were held hostage during a robbery that will go unreported due to fear of prosecution for distribution. Luckily no one was seriously injured, and nothing was stolen.

"We had no money, and we had no pot," quipped the battered dispenser.

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