Dead Woman Walking!

Here's a woman that needs her dose of weed to stay
alive and the U. S. government appeals court has
reaffirmed that that the government has the right
to prosecute her and 100,000 other patients for
medical-marijuana use. What a bummer so can
someone out there tell me that why in the 21st
century that smoking a little pot is a criminal
offense in this country?


Medical marijuana patient Angel Raich's latest bid to win protection from federal drug laws went down to defeat Wednesday in U.S. appeals court despite her claim that cannabis is the only medicine that keeps her alive. The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the second big legal loss in two years for Raich, 41, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from more than a dozen chronic illnesses, including an inoperable brain tumor.

"I feel like I'm a dead man walking because I'm the first person in the country who has been told they do not have a right to life," a sobbing Raich said after learning of the ruling. "I'm trying really hard to remember the word 'courage' — because courage is nothing more than well-concealed fear. "In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed Raich, who has never been charged with a crime but sought to make her plight a test case to win protection for the nation's more than 100,000 medical-marijuana patients.

The high court reaffirmed the right of the U.S. government to wage criminal prosecutions against patients and suppliers, even in California and 10 other states where cannabis is a legal medicine.Raich renewed her case before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit, focusing her arguments on the "medical necessity" of her marijuana use. Her physician says pot, which Raich inhales every two hours, is the only drug that assuages her afflictions, which include a seizure disorder and chronic pain.In a 32-page opinion, Judge Harry Pregerson said Raich failed to prove her case for an injunction that would bar U.S. drug agents from lodging a criminal case against her.

But the judge expressed sympathy for Raich's medical plight and need for marijuana, asserting that she probably would meet the requirements to claim a medical necessity if she were ever criminally prosecuted by the U.S. for her pot use.Pregerson wrote that Raich was faced with a choice between "the lesser of two evils." The judge said she probably met the legal criteria for a medical necessity defense: establishing that her illnesses put her in imminent harm, showing that pot managed her pain and demonstrating that she had been unable to find legal medical alternatives to cannabis, Pregerson wrote.




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