Most people here acknowledge that medical marijuana should be legal. There's strong opposition to medical marijuana outside of salon.com (try the National Review or Free Republic sites for true marijuana prudists and people who condemn it completely), but calling people here names and blaming them for prison rape is so far over the top as to undermine credibility. You are alienating potential allies.

If you want the marijuana laws to change, vote for politicians who promise to change them. One way to force politicians to be more amenable to legalization is to pazs referendums for state legalization. Marijuana is doing well at the state legalization level. Pass the referendum, and then threaten the politicians by pointing out that most of their local voters support this idea. Politicians are panderers and self-interested greedy bastards- right now they are afraid to legalize pot because they are afraid of social conservative extremists. If voters show they disagree with the Right, you'll see a turnaround similiar to the Schaivo/immigration turnaround. That's why Soros and CO. are sponsoring the petitions and intiatives. It is a well thought out strategy to get favorable local laws on the books and counter the right wing intimidation, so that Congress will change the law. This is a successful long term strategy that will possibly make marijuana legal in the next five-ten years. Politicans are not stupid. If voters legalize at the state level, the ability of social conservative extremists to claim to speak for voters is compromised. Right now, a small group is keeping marijuana illegal, along with an agenda of abstinence education, etc, because of their ability to intimidate Congress.

But don't place your faith in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled in 2001 and 2005 against medical marijuana, and made it very clear they are not going to intervene, despite LeCastor's problematic reading of the law (a couple of really successful civil rights attorneys had a good laugh over that post). The current state of the law is that weed is not a right, and a conviction for marijuana possession, following a conviction for marijuana distribution, gets a minimum of 2-5 years, dependant on the state and federal law. It also allows for confiscation of property. The 9th Amendment is not going to save you in court right now. That may be true someday, but not right now.

Whether some people like it or not, until Congress decides otherwise, marijuana is illegal, and the Supreme Court has found no fundamental right, associational right, or anything to change that. They have pointedly said (in the 2005 case) that it is up to Congress to change this law, it is not a fundamental right that allows them to overrule Congress. That is the law as it is now, and as it will be from this Court for probably the next 2-7 years (given the new justices published views in their previous decisions). It doesn't matter what argument you CAN make, you can make any argument no matter how silly: you just won't win with certain arguments because it matters what the precedent is now. This Court has made it clear that the feds, under the Commerce Clause or under the Congressionally pased federal law, can continue to attack marijuana locally, although they can not interefere with state based perogatives (like regulating doctors) to do so. Anyone who tries Lecastor's arguments in court right now to oppose an arrest or conviction is going to spend time in prison under the current law. It will amuse the judge and the police, but it will not save you. Whatever you do, understand that the theorectical arguments are fun here, but not in the real world.

The woman needs to protect her children. He's not trying to help cancer victims, he's just trying to "feel good". "Feeling good" is not a good enough reason to endanger children, although voting, education access, and a number of other things are-so don't start lecturing me. I'm black, I lived through the Civil Rights transition in Louisiana, and I find the attempts to relate this to desegregation trivial. "Feeling good" is no where near a as life changing as going to a decent school or getting access to decent jobs and housing. People asserting this, and trying to relate marijuana to segregation, anti-racism, anti-rape laws, etc need to get perspective or just try living in an inner city for a while. When I lived in the ghetto, I never thought "Man, if we legalized weed, the life around here would be better". I thought "If we equaled the prison terms for coke and crack, forced the police to not brutalize people, got rid of the gang bangers who can't aim a gun worth a shit, forced the city to get rid of the rats and snakes (New Orleans- we have snakes in the ghetto there), got people some jobs and a decent public school education, I might just be able to walk the streets near N.Dorgenois or the Canal Street projects at night without a gun for protection." When one of my schoolmates was shot over a necklace in 1981, I didn't think about legalizing weed. I thought about jobs, and drugs, and gangs.

Marijuana is a not effective for that. We have mood altering drugs for that. Also, the LW was not depressed for years- she's not depressed not, she reasonably afraid her husband's behavior is going to cause them trouble, based on the reality of American drug laws. Claiming she needs therapy is one hell of an insult. There's nothing wrong with the LW's sanity.

She does not need treatment for PTSD, she needs for him to stop toking. Period.

I know PTSD victims of rape and from combat. Their pain is far too deep for marijuana to to even touch it. Claiming it's the reason that the guy does marijuana sounds like Bobby Brown arguing the marijuana medicates his bipolar disorder. No. Just no.

Don't trivialize PTSD this way. That's really going too far.