The Bush administration, pressing its campaign against state medical marijuana laws, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let federal authorities punish California doctors who recommend pot to their patients.
The administration would revoke the federal prescription licenses of doctors who tell their patients marijuana would help them, a prerequisite for obtaining the drug under the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law.
Justice Department lawyers this week asked the high court to take up the issue in its next term, which begins in October. The department is appealing a ruling by an appellate court in San Francisco that said the proposed penalties would violate the freedom of speech of both doctors and patients.
What is it with this administration and marijuana? I don't smoke the stuff anymore, and I don't really care, but one would think John Ashcroft could find a better subject to get his panties all knotted up about.
Punish doctors??? Shouldn't we concentrate on rehabilitating people who are addicted to really bad drugs, rather than trying to de-license doctors who merely discuss something that many very sick people swear is the only thing that makes their lives tolerable?
Perhaps instead we should pass legislation that takes away the license to practice law from assholes like Ashcroft who repeatedly pursue ridiculous, moralistic lawsuits that seek to deprive American citizens of their basic constitutional rights?
What is it that John Ashcroft finds so threatening about marijuana? I know from recent events that he is inexplicably terrified because some men have sex in their bedrooms. Is he afraid that marijuana might let them enjoy it even more? God forbid! People experiencing pleasure? It must be a sin!!
(Don't tell Ashcroft, but one of my greatest pleasures is a nice pair of fleece slippers. Each day after work, I kick off my hot, heavy dress shoes and slip into my dreamy, soft, light, and cozy fleece slippers.
I'm sure if Ashcroft realized how pleasurable a nice pair of fleece slippers could be, he'd order the goons from the Office of Homeland Facism (or whatever the fuck he calls it) to seize Lands' End's list of slipper purchasers, and have the lot of us squatting naked in cages at Camp Gitmo within the hour. [Though of course our genitals would have to be covered -- with something not made of hemp -- or fleece.])
The article I quoted from above (from the San Francisco Chronicle) is here, but it does not answer my questions about the twisted nature of Ashcroft's priorities.
For example, just recently the DEA was trying to ban hemp from food products, even though hemp is completely harmless and you can't get high from it. Get a life, people. If you look around, you'll find that there is a lot of real crime that actually hurts people. Why don't you concentrate on that instead?