[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by lillith

I wrote a paper for a political science class last year that received an A and a comment of nothing more than "Wow!" I am including just the first three paragraphs:

The legal use of medicinal marijuana is a hot topic in today’s political forums. In the state of California, the growing, distribution, and use of medicinal marijuana is legal (if you have a prescription and a state licensed card), but on the federal level it is not. This ability to separate state government from federal government is called federalism. Even though California says that a patient with certain terminal illnesses is allowed to use it as pain management, the federal government can come in and trump this. The national government has the supremacy clause that allows it to go into a state and enforce its laws on the citizens.
If the federal government decides to impose its laws on the people of California (implied powers), regarding this issue, the people can go to the Supreme Courts and apply for a grievance of infringement upon the state’s right to make these laws and uphold them; this is referred to as reserved powers. If the Supreme Court deems that this is an unconstitutional act, then the federal government has to withdraw out of the state’s policies on the issue.
However, the federal government can mandate that the growth, distribution, and use of marijuana when it comes to it crossing state lines as merchandise. The commerce clause is used by Congress to control commerce between states. The federal government made marijuana illegal, thus its transfer from state to state is illegal. Albeit that the federal government can come into the state at any time and have ill patients arrested, it just doesn’t seem to be proper form and takes away from the state’s ability to police and monitor itself.

I am several years into my soberity, but I do believe that if a person is hurting and there is a natural way to help with pain management, I am all over it.

I have cancer. I have a medical marijuana card. I do not use it, because to ME it feels too risky. For precisely the reasons you mention in your stellar A paper. I am also married to someone with 12 years clean, and feel like it would be disrespectful to bring the substance into the house.