Supreme Court marijuana ruling
In today’s ruling (June 11) the court said that medical marijuana patients can use, among other products, cannabis oils, and they can also bake it in brownies, a popular manner of using pot for decades. There are still other ways of taking their medicine — marijuana tea, anyone? — and it all has Health Minister Rona Ambrose smoking mad.
She told media she is “outraged” by the ruling. In doing so, Ambrose also brought up her government’s stance that there is no proof marijuana is of medicinal value.
“Marijuana has never gone through the regulatory approval process at Health Canada,” the minister told media at an Ottawa press conference. “Which requires rigorous safety reviews and clinical trials with scientific evidence. So frankly, I’m outraged by the Supreme Court.
“We have this message that normalizes a drug where there is no clear clinical evidence that it is, quote-unquote, a medicine,” she continued. Ms. Ambrose added that it’s the first time the country has seen a product labelled a medicine “because judges deemed it so.”
Many argue there is proof medical marijuana works and it is in the users of the product who now say they are pain-free, or at the least pain-reduced. In the future, given the Supreme Court ruling, the proof may be in the marijuana pudding.
Appeal of pot acquittal
This decision came after the government appealed a lower-court decision that said the limiting of medical marijuana users to dried leaves infringed upon their liberty vis-à-vis the Charter of Rights.
That ruling came about after a Victoria man, baker Owen Smith, was acquitted on marijuana charges after being found to have over 200 pot cookies and other cannabis products in his home. Mr. Smith was then the head baker for the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada.
Supreme Court justices voted 7-0 to uphold the lower-court ruling. “Inhaling marijuana can present health risks,” the court said in its judgement. “And is less effective for some conditions than administration of cannabis derivatives.”
In some of the 23 U.S. states that permit medical marijuana it’s already legal to make other products with weed. In California, for example, marijuana ice-cream is a favorite at numerous dispensaries.
The June 11 ruling Supreme Court in Canada has been hailed by advocates of medical marijuana.
