Courts behind the times on pot use

Of the various fronts in the nation’s “war on drugs,” none seems more perverse and pointless than the raids that Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed Drug Enforcement Administration agents to stage against patients treating themselves with medical marijuana under Proposition 215, a law that California voters passed eight years ago.

On Monday, two of those patients—Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who used the drug as a last resort to ease the constant pain of a brain tumor, and Diane Monson of Oroville, who used cannabis to help her stay mobile despite a degenerative spinal disease—struck back, appealing their right to treatment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That the Justice Department considers them criminals shows something seriously out of whack in Washington.

Some of the justices fretted that allowing Raich to grow her own pot and use it would open the floodgates for unlimited recreational use.

In the elections earlier this month, voters, even in some red states, supported letting seriously ill patients medicate themselves with marijuana. Medical marijuana did better than President Bush in Montana, garnering support of 62 percent, compared with Bush’s 59 percent.

Even in Texas, a poll showed 75 percent support for legalizing the medical use of marijuana.

The Supreme Court probably won’t rule on the marijuana case for months.

Congress and the White House could act much faster, bringing federal policy in line with science and society.

No one needs to watch another brain tumor patient engage in a David-and-Goliath legal battle to defend her last-ditch drug of choice.

—This editorial appeared in
The Los Angeles Times