Is cannabis legal to recommend?
In 2004, the United States Supreme Court upheld earlier federal court decisions that physicians have a fundamental Constitutional right to recommend Medical Cannabis to their patients. Within weeks of California voters legalizing Medical Cannabis in 1996, federal officials had threatened to revoke the prescribing privileges of any physicians who recommended Cannabis to their patients for medical use. In response, a group of doctors and patients led by AIDS specialist Dr. Marcus Conant filed suit against the government, contending that such a policy violates the First Amendment. The federal courts agreed at first the district level, then all the way through appeals to the Ninth Circuit and then the Supreme Court. What doctors may and may not do. In Conant v. Walters, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the federal government could neither punish nor threaten a physician merely for recommending the use of cannabis to a patient. But it remains illegal for a doctor to “aid and abe
