Pot without a prescription

Local dispensary advertises availability of drug

By Robert Nathan Eberhart
From the March 2006 Print Edition

The Compassionate Use Act, approved by California voters in 1996, has since become a flashpoint in the national debate about the reach of the federal government, federalism, and the ingenious manifestations of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 provided the legal basis for “seriously ill Californians” to obtain marijuana for medical use as prescribed by a physician. The bold passage of this law, in defiance of the federal government’s categorization of marijuana as an illegal drug with no medical value, represented a legislative foray into unknown waters, and the ramifications and applications of that foray have yet to be explored.

The principle of experimental, defiant state legislation has a long history in the United States. Nevada’s legalization of gambling and prostitution, Vermont’s revolutionary abolition of slavery, and Oregon’s right-to-die legislation are but a few of the countless examples of original legislation to first see the light in state law, where they either found their way into national life or were gloriously destroyed under the weight of their own sweeping social goals. The virtue of federalism, endorsed by Justice Louis Brandeis, is that “a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

As a rule, “novel social experiments” come with a certain degree of risk and inevitably experience problems when plucked from the realm of ideological abstraction and placed into the real world of bureaucratic minutiae. It should be no surprise that California’s Compassionate Use Act has endured many of the same trials as its predecessors.

As I perused the Byzantine collection of flyers and announcements on one of the campus public announcement boards, I came across one in particular that caught my eye. The subject was “medical marijuana.”

The flyer advertised a local pot dispensary that was purportedly accepting cash to connect people with doctors willing to write marijuana prescriptions without a medical examination or medical history.

The pot club, aptly named the Patients Care Collective, just blocks from campus on Telegraph Avenue, said that for a fee of $170 “you can get a doctor’s recommendation regardless of your medical condition ... Contact us and we will steer you to a doctor that will write that recommendation with no medical history!”

Naturally, this on-demand corruption piqued my interest and I deposited the flyer in my bag. After calling the number on the flyer and receiving vague and confused responses from the other line, I decided it was worth visiting the club.

The club’s location can be quickly found due to its conspicuous discreteness. Tucked between a beauty salon and a restaurant, the club’s large windows are completely covered by large, non-descript curtains. All that adorns the club’s facade is an old, worn address. Two large, well-dressed men of what appeared to be Latin American descent, talking on cell phones and surveying the block, stood at the entrance to the building and shot me a green-eyed glance as I approached.

As I entered the club, flanked by the two dapper men, I was hauled back by a powerful hand. These men obviously didn’t recognize me and proceeded to engage me with grunts and hand motions that amounted to a self-evident “Get lost, kid.”

I still didn’t know what was going on in that club, but without a satisfactory explanation or statement regarding the flyer that led me to the place, all I have is my imagination to fill in the details.

The recent Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich established that, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the federal government can prosecute the use of medicinal marijuana, further complicating the legal imbroglio that has tied up the Compassionate Use Act. This, in addition to recent federal raids on marijuana dispensaries and warehouses, is setting the stage for a final showdown between federal and state authorities in which the final outcome is unclear.

Flyers like the one described above, publicly soliciting the corruption of a voter initiative, serve only to encourage a federal government that is already looking for an excuse to consolidate power and reign in wayward states such as California.

Medical marijuana still has a long journey before it if it is to be implemented successfully or accepted by the federal government as a benign state issue. Let’s hope that the journey is a peaceful one motivated by concerns of benevolence and reason.

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