Americans for Safe Access forcing FDA to face medical marijuana

Dean Kuipers has a great piece on Feds v. Meds analyzing the issues around regulatory relief. He offers up an interesting explanation of ASA's challenge brought forward under the little known Data Quality Act to counter the FDA's resistance to taking up the issue. The FDA of course is currently aided in their quest to deny rescheduling by the DEA's refusal to release a mere ten grams of cannabis for scientific study.

Dean also tells of the little publicized case of Michael Teague.

Like Angel Raich, Michael Teague is not the guy who comes to mind when you imagine a dangerous drug user wanted by federal authorities. On April 2, 2003, Orange County Sheriff's deputies searched his garage in Tustin and found 102 to 108 marijuana plants, about half of them only one-inch high clones. Teague was then 33 and the modestly successful owner of Aqua Chemical, a pool-cleaning service, and the Sheriff's Department treated this as a big score.

At least, until he pulled out his prescription for medical marijuana. Teague had injured four vertebrae in his back while wrestling in high school, and as he went through years of treatments it was discovered that he was allergic to aspirin, ibuprofen, muscle relaxers - in fact, most synthetic pain killers. His doctor then got him on pot, and it worked.

"I never smoked until they told me I needed it," says Teague, speaking by phone from a halfway house in Garden Grove, where he is finishing the last month of what has turned out to be an 18-month sentence. "I didn't get stoned every day. I don't even drink alcohol. I only smoked a few times a week at night so I could sleep on the pain. I've never done anything wrong in my life."

The state court refused to convict him so the local law enforcement convinced the feds to get involved. A judge sentenced him to 18 months and remanded him to federal prison the first day he appeared in federal court. Thanks to prosecutorial maneuvering, on January 9, 2005, he will have served his full sentence in Terminal Island - his appeal never having been heard.

So much for speedy justice.