SAN FRANCISCO — Frustrated by government policy and inaction, a group of advocates for medical marijuana sued two federal health agencies on Wednesday over the assertion that smoking it has no medical benefit. The group, Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court, challenging the government’s position that marijuana, ‘has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.’ In its lawsuit, the group contends that federal regulators have publicly issued ‘false and misleading statements’ about the medical benefits of marijuana. The lawsuit, which named the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration, seeks a court order to retract and correct statements that the group called, ‘incorrect, dishonest and a flagrant violation of laws.’ A lawyer for the medical marijuana group, Joseph Elford, said the lawsuit was filed now because administrative avenues had been exhausted and because of mounting scientific and anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Mr. Elford said a recent study by the Clinical Research Center at San Francisco General Hospital, which was approved by the F.D.A. and other federal agencies, found that smoking marijuana relieved pain and […]
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law. The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights. The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now […]
Health care spending in the United States is projected to grow 6.8 percent in 2006, down slightly from the 6.9 percent growth experienced in 2005. This expected growth rate would mark the fourth consecutive year of slowing growth since a peak of 9.1 percent in 2002, and would be the slowest rate of growth observed since 1999. Over the projection period, growth in the expenditures for health care is expected to remain relatively stable, averaging 6.9 percent per year. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), health care spending is expected to hold steady at 16.0 percent in 2006. By 2016, health care spending in the United States is projected to reach just over $4.1 trillion and comprise 19.6 percent of GDP. The implementation of Medicare Part D (Part D) in 2006 results in a major shift in the sources of payment for prescription drugs, as spending is transferred from Medicaid and private sources of funding to Medicare. Consequently, expected growth rates for public and private spending in this year’s projection are very different. For instance, growth in public personal health care spending in 2006 is projected to climb to 9.9 percent while private personal health care […]
He shall eat cake. The 83rd birthday festivities on Saturday of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe will be a grand affair, with the finest food and drink, and lavish celebrations, in the manner to which the Most Consistent and Authentic Revolutionary Leader has become accustomed. The cost, in hard currency terms, will be £30,000. Now you might think this would present something of a problem. It is hard, after all, to overstate the economic crisis in which Zimbabwe is mired. It has a 1600% inflation rate, the world’s highest. On one day this week, Tuesday, the price of bread rose 136%, meaning that it costs the average person a week’s wages to pay for one loaf. Some 80% of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Shelves are empty. Discontent is so widespread that even the government’s own police officers, traditionally kept sweet by enhanced pay, are deserting in the face of intolerably low wages. All this has certainly created something of a challenge. But there’s always a way. This time, reports suggest, it involved summarily deducting money from civil servants’ already paltry wages and strong-arming near-bankrupt local businesses into ‘donating’ money. For the harried, overburdened people of Zimbabwe, this latest show […]
There was a time when the Episcopal Church in the United States was known as ‘the Republican Party at prayer,’ but in the last 30 years it has evolved into the Rainbow Coalition of Christianity. There are hip-hop Masses, American Indian rituals to install a new presiding bishop and legions of gay and straight priests who don the rainbow stoles of gay liberation. Its pews are full of Roman Catholics and Christians from other traditions attracted by its aura of radical acceptance. Now the conservatives who numerically dominate the global Anglican Communion have handed their Episcopal branch in the United States an ultimatum that requires the church to reel in the rainbow if it wants to remain a part of the Communion. With a communiqué issued in Tanzania on Monday after a five-day meeting, the leaders of Anglican provinces around the world (known as primates) asked the United States branch to bar gay men and lesbians from becoming bishops, and to stop official blessings of same-sex unions. The communiqué even specified a deadline: Sept. 30. There is no certainty that Episcopal leaders will now comply. In interviews yesterday, some liberal and moderate leaders who constitute a […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
