NORML and the NORML Foundation have filed a joint amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Angel Raich and Diane Monson, two California medical marijuana patients.
In December 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction barring the Justice Department from prosecuting either Raich or Monson, determining that the prosecution of patients who possess and cultivate marijuana for their own personal use in accordance with state law is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress' Commerce Clause authority. The Justice Department appealed that ruling, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case (Ashcroft et al. v. Raich et al.) on November 29, 2004.
"This case is about the confluence of the state and individual rights: A state's capacity to legislate its public health policy, by choosing its own means and ends to achieve what it believes best serves the good of its people, when there is no superior or even competing federal interest; and, the right of personal medical choices of the chronically and terminally ill, made in consultation with their doctors," states the brief, authored by NORML Legal Committee member John Wesley Hall with assistance from Michael Cutler.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), along with the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, also signed on to the brief as amici curaie.
"If our Constitution means anything, it should mean that 'the war on drugs' cannot be made to be a war on the quality of life of the chronically or terminally ill," it concludes.
"Sadly, ... the government believes in and promotes a constitutional regime that enables the federal government to enforce its policies which only serve to enhance patients' pain contrary to state law and in denigration of the principles embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and to elementary notions of federalism. This Court must reject any such view of the federal law and the Constitution that violates the rights of both citizens and the states to enact laws for their common good where there is no federal interest and where the federal government expressly disclaimed any interest in preemption under [federal law.]
Full text of the NORML/NORML Foundation amicus curiae brief and other documents are available online.
