US Supreme Court "must uphold FDA"

The US Supreme Court is to decide whether voters of state ballotinitiatives can sidestep the established drug approval process of the Food and Drug Administration to determine which drugs may be beneficial in treating various medical conditions, even those which are severe and life-threatening.

In what is fundamentally the first attempt to oppose the legalization of marijuana, a number of anti-drug organizations are joining to bring a comprehensive Amicus Brief in the Supreme Court. They include the Drug Free America Foundation, a non-profit organization which claims to "educate the public about dangerous shifts in drug policy." Its executive director, Calvina Fay, says the Supreme Court must address this issue to ensure an effective national drug policy. "It is imperative that the Court preserves the FDA's drug approval process, the mechanism that protects Americans from unsafe, ineffective drugs," she says.

The Foundation notes that several US states have passed ballot initiatives allowing individuals with ailments "as slight as athlete's foot" to possess marijuana and other illegal drugs to treat these ills, and which also contain features that legalize or decriminalize these drugs. Law enforcement has criticized such measures because they blur the line between what is legal and what is not, and allow drug dealers to escape prosecution by claiming to be medical providers, it adds.