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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (7270)	7/13/2004 8:03:33 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20039

Suppose Congress passes a law limiting possession of nuclear weapons to the federal armed forces. Can a state pass a valid law allowing any citizen to possess any weapon he chooses? Would a federal court be incorrect in overruling the state law? Would federal police be wrong in enforcing the federal law in that state?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (7270)	7/13/2004 9:10:32 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20039

Rock > There's nothing in the Constitution regarding medical marijuana I shouldn't think it's a Constitutional issue. If it's a drug then it would be the problem for the FDA. Further, if it's a natural product, as marijuana is, then the drug companies would complain about it as it would be infringing their "territory". Another problem concerns its actual medical efficacy. If marijuana works as a therapeutic agent, as you you say it does, then this must be shown in proper clinical trials and the active ingredient (presumably THC) standardized for the particular conditions where it is intended to be used. As far as I can ascertain, this has not yet happened. Further, there are side-effects which also have to be taken in consideration, and I'm not only referring to its habit-forming potential. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov usdoj.gov Actually I doubt that marijuana is particularly effective in comparison with existing agents because if it was the drug companies would have manufactured, and patented, a drug using THC, or similar, and closed up the market to any competition. A similar situation happened with Tryptophan, the cheap amino-acid precursor of serotonin. The drug companies wanted to market their expensive SSRI drugs eg Prozac, which increase brain serotonin, so they "found" that commercial Tryptophan was toxic and it was banned from medical use. So you can be sure that even if "medical marijuana" was legalized people would not generally be able to grow it for themselves. Anyway, I am sure that if it was considered essential for a particular patient to have some marijuana for a therapeutic reason a way could be found in the existing medical establishment for that to happen. I am confident that most doctors would be considerate to the needs of the patient, particularly in terminal or severely debilitating conditions.