In light of the hearbreaking email below, I think it’s time to start thinking about whether or not denying drugs that would relive pain to hurting people amounts to government torture.

Skip Oliva sends an email that makes some sense:

I don’t know if anyone has made this connection, but there is an implicit pro-torture message in the Raich decision. It is understood by just about everyone (save the DEA and ONDCP) that people have relieved their pain using marijuana. The government’s effort to prevent medicinal marijuana use is therefore a deliberate infliction of pain upon an essentially powerless minority group. It certainly fits within the general realm of “torture,” as pain is being inflicted to further an explicit state objective.

Viewed in this light, the left’s acquiesence and approval of Raich becomes even more telling.

When we think of possible ways the U.S. government would “torture” people, we genearlly envision G-men prying information from Cold War spies, Abu Ghraib humiliation, or slapping around suspected terrorists at Gitmo.

But it seems to me that any government policy which deliberately and needlessly causes people excruciating pain in the furthrance of a state interest would qualify, too. That would include both medical marijuana and the DEA’s campaign against opioid painillers.

I think there’s something to this.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 11th, 2005 at 10:53 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.