Supreme Court okays witch-hunt of sick people

On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal authorities can prosecute chronically ill patients who have been prescribed marijuana for medical use. The six-to-three decision is a blow to those who have fought for legalization of medical marijuana. Ten states currently allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for pain relief in patients suffering debilitating illnesses.

The ruling came after the Bush administration appealed the case of two ailing women in California, Angel Raich and Diane Monson, who were prescribed marijuana for medical use. The women now fear federal prosecution. California voters passed a law providing for medical use of the plant back in 1996.

Raich suffers from a number of painful ailments, including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and fatigue. She says that she was unable to walk until she began using marijuana.

Monson suffers from a degenerative spine disease. Federal agents confiscated marijuana plants from her home in 2002.

What’s rarely discussed in the corporate media’s coverage of the case is that pharmaceutical companies continue to squeeze the uninsured and underinsured, leaving people to fend for themselves.

Pharmaceuticals companies have been reaping huge profits. Prescription drugs are an ever-increasing part of health-care costs. U.S. residents spend over $200 billion a year on them.

Prescription medications often have side effects that many patients can’t endure. But since pharmaceutical companies care purely about profit, there is little incentive for them to develop less harmful medications.

With the rising cost of insurance premiums and prescription medications, few op tions remain for those enduring chronic pain.

Marijuana is a relatively low-cost alternative in those states that have legalized its use for medical purposes. Some patients can tolerate its side effects better than those of other pain drugs.

At last count, some 47 million people in the United States go without health care. Millions more are under-insured and can’t afford medication when needed. This amounts to genocide in poor communities of color, where people often die from lack of health care.

Yet there are no rumblings about this crisis in the halls of “justice.” Nor are bourgeois politicians waging a struggle to right this wrong.

Instead, the war to criminalize the poor —known as the “War on Drugs”—is being expanded to include the very ill, who use mari juana for a short respite from chronic pain.