California's Medical Marijuana law
            
             Under federal law using marijuana in anyway is illegal. But starting on 1996 California passed proposition 215 making it legal to smoke marijuana if you have a serious illness and you need to obtain a doctors recommendation first. This law was passed because marijuana lessens pain and stops nausea from resulting from serious diseases. It also lowers the internal eye pressure associated with glaucoma which slows the process of blindness. It reduces the pain of AIDS patients plus it makes them hungry because of those suffering malnutrition because of AID'S wasting syndrome. It also reduces muscle spasticity and chronic pain because of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and spinal cord injuries.
            
             In 1998 the U.S. government sued the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative (OCBC) in federal court for violating the Controlled Substances Act. They want to do this because proposition 215 is very "loose". For example to be order to get marijuana you would have to have a illness but it also say that you can use it for any other type of illness for which marijuana provides relief which could be stress, headaches, upset stomach, insomnia....or anything else. You wouldn't even need a written prescription to get it. Anyone with a "oral recommendation or approval by a physician" can grow, possess, or smoke marijuana. Even little kids can smoke pot legally if they have a prescription. Plus there is no FDA approval for marijuana. The quality, purity and strength of the drug is unregulated.
            
             The Government wanted the OCBC to be ban from distributing marijuana to patients. But the OCBC in there defense said that it acted out of "medical necessity" because of seriously ill citizens, and that such a medical necessity should be an exception to the law. But the district court favored the U.S. government, which caused the OCBC to shutdown. But In May 2001 the Supreme C...