Why is marijuana illegal for medical use? Because it can't be patented.
When my father was dying from cancer treatment, he did a lot of puking. It was heart-wrenching to watch a strong man retching from poisonous chemicals. The nurses wore masks and gloves to administer the drugs. Dad was instructed to close the lid and flush the toilet twice to make sure the excreted poisons went down the toilet.
The drugs were supposed to kill the cancer before they killed my dad. Dad lost. The drug cocktail was more efficient at attacking my dad's organs... much less effective on his cancer.
My dad took an obscenely expensive antiemitic. Antiemitics help to suppress the body from vomiting. A natural bodily response to get poison out of the body is to try to vomit it up. Dad did a lot of puking - a lot. Before taking that "wonder drug", Dad puked even more.
That expensive, man-made drug is protected by a patent... and protected by a ban on the use of marijuana for medical treatment. The cost of one pill is staggering. That drug's number 1 competitor is made by nature and banned by men.
Drug companies invent bizarre, unnatural, unhealthy synthetic chemical molecules to treat all sorts of symptoms. Sometimes the side effects are worse than the orginal ailment. Sometimes the drugs provide great relief... and sometimes they are no more effective than a placebo.
Legally contrived financial incentives create odd market effects. Drug companies have tried to patent chicken cartilage, herbs, plants, etc, for pharmaceutical use. Sometimes natural remedies are more effective, cheaper and healthier than synthetic drugs. But natural remedies cannot be patented. They provide no patent-protected price gouging.
Does it really matter who holds political office? Do their decisions actually affect you or me in our daily lives?
Today the supreme court upheld bans on medical marijuana.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority decision. Joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a separate opinion to say he agreed with the result, though not the majority's reasoning.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented.