The American Constitution Society at Georgetown University Law School, in conjunction with SSDP, last night hosted an excellent panel discussion on Ashcroft v. Raich, the upcoming Supreme Court medical-marijuana case.

[Since this post is a long one, I'm not going to go into much detail on the Raich case. Please follow the link above and this one to learn more, and also visit Angel Raich's comprehensive website.]

[The Raich team -- led by superlawyer (and fellow Northwestern University alum) Randy Barnett -- is currently on a moot court tour of several U.S. law schools, including a recent session at Georgetown and one this week at Oklahoma City.]

Speakers were Keith Stroup, longtime head of NORML and a Georgetown law alum; Peter J. Cohen, MD, a Georgetown law professor, author, and former NIDA expert (who, as far as I know, is not related to researcher Peter D.A. Cohen of the Netherlands); Mark Moller of the Cato Institute; and AEI scholar and psychiatrist Sally Satel. The panel was moderated by CJPF head Eric Sterling.

Stroup spoke first, tracing the roots of Raich all the way back to Bob Randall, the country's first legal medical-marijuana patient.

Stroup pointed out that the case hinges not just on the Interstate Commerce Clause, which lies within Article I of the Constitution, but also on interpretations of civil liberties, medical privacy and search & seizure laws. He outlined that while federal police powers must be explicitly tied to the Constitution, the federal enforcement of laws against medical marijuana has no constitutional basis.

Though hopeful, based on recent Supreme Court decisions related to the Commerce Clause, including Lopez, Stroup rightly questioned whether the current makeup of the court has the "clarity of judgment" to affirm such an enormous change in federal law as legalization of medical marijuana.

Finally, Stroup raised the prospect for wider marijuana-law reform, stating that, should the court find that marijuana is legal for medical use, then it is likely to soon find another case brought before it in which it could find that marijuana is legal for personal use.

Dr. Cohen, who later agreed with this claim by Stroup, then spoke about the case from the perspective of the FDA's "new-drug-approval" process. A former anesthesiologist and NIDA official, Cohen claims to have "probably administered more drugs than most low-level drug dealers." He also regurgitated drug-war myths as fact, stating at one point that "my giving you morphine doesn't encourage kids to do morphine," implicitly stating that medical marijuana would somehow encourage more recreational use by kids. (Nevermind that the latter is a factually baseless claim, and that, regarding the former, so-called dealers only rarely administer drugs -- they just sell them.)

Later, attributing human traits to the plant, Cohen claimed that marijuana "subjects people to unsubstantiated hope" -- but when is hope guaranteed? -- and railed against the "vain hopes of unproven cures."

Cato's Moller then spoke, referring in his remarks to a 7-year-old Slate debate -- between New Republic legal affairs editor (and George Washington University law professor) Jeff Rosen and Eugene Scalia, a DC lawyer and son of you-know-who -- on the limits of federal power. Moller, an expert on the Constitution and Supreme Court, combined this nugget with several points made by Stroup, and evoked the founding fathers' standard of requiring federal actions to be both "necessary and proper."

Moller said that federal laws against medical marijuana were not "necessary and proper," and that the "power of federal regulation" is now well beyond the scope of those explicit and legitimate powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution. This charge was later echoed by moderator Sterling, who -- knowing it does not -- rhetorically asked if the Constitution allows the feds to take new powers.

Dr. Satel, the last speaker, while expressing "skepticism" of marijuana-buyers' clubs, said there is "no doubt" that marijuana "has value" as a medicine, countering doubts expressed earlier by Cohen. While going out of her way to praise the Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann, she also took issue with his (and the Alliance's) assertion that medical marijuana legalization can provide a road map for greater legalization of marijuana.

Though serious in nature, there were a few lighter moments. Stroup at one point took a drink of water, claiming he had "cottonmouth." Satel promised at one point not to speak in the jarring legalese that characterized one portion of Moller's talk.

During the final question-and-answer period, Cohen moderated his views somewhat, admitting that the federal government has "spent too damn much money on the whole marijuana business." Cohen, who if not a drug warrior is certainly in favor of at least some of its objectives, gave hope to opponents of medical prohibitions when he said that within the "next few years, there will be an inhaled form of marijuana that's gone through FDA approval."

MPP's Steve Fox asked the panelists whether the Constitution's equal protection clause applies in Raich and if -- since the federal government does not recognize medical marijuana -- a victory in Raich would immediately legalize all marijuana. Panelists seemed split on the first point but were adamant that the latter tact was (unfortunately) not applicable.

Since all news is local, I asked about the Raich case's possible impact on Washington, DC's Measure 62, which both Stroup and Sterling insist is dead in Congress. (Though court action spurred in part by the Alliance could change that.) I also asked the panelists about their projections for Raich and was surprised by their cautiously optimistic outlook.

Outside of the panel I spoke with several optimistic drug-policy reformers in the crowd, including Tom from SSDP (a D'Alliance tipster), MPP's Fox, and Anjuli and Dave from the ACLU. (Unlike me, they're all quite spiffy dressers.)

Special thanks to Pete at Drug WarRant for posting details of the Georgetown/SSDP event, else I might never have known about it.

Phew.