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The use, sale and possession of cannabis (marijuana) in the United States is still illegal under federal law. However, some states have created exemptions for medical cannabis use, as well as decriminalized non-medical cannabis use. In four states, Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington, the sale and possession of marijuana is legal for both medical and non-medical use. Multiple efforts to reschedule cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act have failed, and the United States Supreme Court has ruled in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and Gonzales v. Raich that the federal government has a right to regulate and criminalize cannabis. Also, if the cannabis is called "medical cannabis" the federal law still has priority.
STATUS: Medical Cannabis (Marijuana) in America, United States of (USA), Yes and No ... |
U.S. FEDERAL LAW: Illegal; Both Cannabis and Tetrahydrocannabinols, the active chemicals contained in Cannabis plants, are Schedule I in the United States.
This means they are federally illegal to cultivate, buy, possess, or distribute (sell, trade or give) in all forms (cannabis plants, extracts, hash, hash oil, thc, etc) except synthetic THC (Marinol) which is Schedule III.
As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana (cannabis) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs. The Act allows mis-controlled substances to be reclassified by petition by any member of the public, but federal agencies have so far delayed for many years each such petition on behalf of cannabis, and then denied it.
Yet, Four (4) living patients continue to receive federal marijuana, including, since 1983, Irvin Rosenfeld (for bone spurs), a 52-year-old stockbroker who has been featured in numerous print articles and on the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! cable television series; Elvy Musikka (for glaucoma); and George McMahon (who authored Prescription Pot, a book detailing the federal program, which contains the only existing medical study performed on legal patients).
The marijuana is grown on a farm at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and each person receives 300 doses a month. These patients are required by the U. S. Government to smoke the marijuana through a "rolled paper tube" (not ingesting or using pipes or vaporizers). Patients and their doctors report significant medical benefits from their use of marijuana.
U.S. STATE LAW(s):
Laws and Enforcement varies from state to state - Legal in four (4) states and DC, thirty-plus states and DC have enacted laws that legalized medical cannabis (marijuana) in some form;
Several have Hemp laws but only in Colorado is anyone planting any seeds.
Legally, there is a split between the U. S. federal and many state governments over medical marijuana policy. On June 6, 2005, the Supreme Court, in Gonzales v. Raich, ruled in a 6-3 decision that Congress has the right to outlaw medicinal cannabis, thus subjecting all patients to federal prosecution even in states where the treatment is legalized.
The case brought into tension two themes of the Rehnquist court: the limits it has imposed on the federal government and the latitude it has afforded law enforcement officers. Joining Justice John Paul Stevens's majority decision were Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote separately to say he agreed with the result, though not the majority's reasoning. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented.
LEGAL for All: Currently, four (4) states -
Alaska,
Colorado
Oregon,
and
Washington,
plus the District of Columbia
- have Legalized, making it Medical for Everybody.
Also, in Michigan, several municipalities have passed laws favorable towards legalization. This does not legalize its use in the state just as state laws are over-ridden by federal.
MEDICAL: Forty-plus states have some form of medical marijuana laws in effect on the books.
Some 16 States have Laws Specifically allowing Legal Cannabidiol (CBD):
Alabama,
Delaware,
Florida,
Georgia,
Iowa,
Kentucky,
Mississippi,
Missouri,
North Carolina,
Oklahoma,
South Carolina,
Tennessee,
Texas,
Utah,
Virginia,
Wisconsin
and
Wyoming.
In Missouri, they have a CBD-Only law and two municipalities have passed laws favorable towards medical marijuana. This does not legalize its use in the state just as state laws are over-ridden by federal. Georgia has a Law from the 80's, but it was never implemented.
Florida narrowly missed a constitutional amendment allowing Medical Cannabis, has an Affirmative Defense law and a CBD-Only law.
Maryland
has an Affirmative Defense law as well.
Affirmative defenses, which protect from conviction but not arrest, are or may be available in several states even if the patient doesn't have an ID card: Rhode Island, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and, in some circumstances, Delaware. Hawaii also has a separate 'choice of evils' defense. Patient ID cards are voluntary in Maine and California, but in California they offer the strongest legal protection. In Delaware, the defense is only available between when a patient submits a valid application and receives their ID card.
Also,
Iowa
and
Oregon
have re-scheduled marijuana from Schedule I.
More on ReScheduling > here <<
In the United States, there are important legal differences between medical cannabis at the federal and state levels. At the federal level, cannabis per se has been made criminal by implementation of the Controlled Substances Act, but as of 2009, new federal guidelines have been enacted. According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, "It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal."
California passed an initiative to allow medical cannabis in 1996. In the intervening years, multiple states have passed similar initiatives. A January 2010 ABC News poll showed that 81 percent of Americans believed that medical cannabis should be legal in the United States. Most recently, in June 2014 New York became the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana not including DC, however the marijuana cannot be smoked.
Twenty-five (25) states, plus the District of Columbia, have medical marijuana programs already or planned, some of which have Limited and Non-Smoking versions of medical cannabis (marijuana) laws:
Alaska,
Arizona,
California,
Connecticut,
Delaware,
Hawaii,
Illinois,
Maine,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
Michigan,
Minnesota,
Montana,
Nevada,
New Hampshire,
New Jersey,
New Mexico,
New York,
Ohio,
Oregon,
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Vermont
and
Washington.
SOURCE(s) =
[0] -
Medical cannabis in the United States
| From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_in_the_United_States
/
[1] -
Cannabis in the United States
| From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_the_United_States
/
[2] -
Legal and medical status of cannabis
| From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_medical_status_of_cannabis
/
[3] -
Legal Status of
| Cannabis around the World -
by Erowid
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_law.shtml
/
[4] -
Legality of cannabis by country
| From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_country
|
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