Doctors’ Right to Recommend Medical Marijuana
In a significant victory for marijuana doctors and seriously ill patients relying on marijuana to cure or relieve their suffering, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided not to review a lower court’s decision that upheld a medical marijuana doctor’s right to recommend the drug to patients. Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush have both tried to stop medical marijuana in states, which have upheld it through a threat of removing the license of any doctor (marijuana doctor) who even mentions or recommends medical marijuana to a patient. Thus, the decision by the Supreme Court was in response to a request by the Solicitor General to review a unanimous decision by the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which marijuana doctors have the right to recommend or prescribe marijuana to their seriously ill patients for treatment.
In the case Conant vs. Walters, it upheld an injunction by the lower court to prohibit the Federal Government
from threatening physicians and marijuana doctors to revoke their licenses should the doctor recommend, or
even discuss, medical marijuana use with their patients. The patients involved in the Conant case have been suffering from cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, and rely on their physician’s uncensored medical judgment to treat their illnesses and life-threatening conditions.According to Daniel Abrahamson, Director of Legal Affairs at the Drug
Policy Alliance, ““Patients’ rights and the will of state voters have both been vindicated today.” Abrahamson further stated that, ““The State of California has developed a well-structured and thorough process through which it ensures he proper implementation of Prop 215….It has always been, and should continue to be, the state’s role to police the medical profession while balancing the First Amendment rights of doctors and patients.
Under today’s decision, the federal government’s intrusion into this system should come to an end.” Consequently, the drug Policy Alliance is the leading organization in United States that extends efforts in ending the war on drugs as well as in helping initiate the class action lawsuit on behalf of physicians, marijuana doctors and patients. The Alliance had led legal efforts to challenge the federal government that threatened the revocation of the licenses of physicians and marijuana doctors.Californians had passed Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act, in 1996, which declares that laws against marijuana possession and cultivation “shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient’s primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana … upon the written or oral recommendation or for approval of a physician.”
On the other hand, the Federal Government had continued to threaten physicians and marijuana doctors, who recommend medical marijuana under state law.Currently ten states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon and Washington) have legalized some form of medical marijuana.
Tags: marijuana doctors, marijuana doctors California, medical marijuana doctors
