Pot for the sick and the disabled on cruise ships...

What do they have in common?

Two decisions by the Supreme Court that put Federal law over not only State Law but Foreign Countries as well.

The Supreme Court agreed with the theory that the Federal Government could prosecute people under the Federal Drug Laws for using marijuana even when they know it is not being transported over state lines. The court agreed 6-3 in an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was a valid exercise of federal power by the Congress "even as applied to the troubling facts of this case."

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented.

"Relying on Congress' abstract assertions, the court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use," she said. "This overreaching stifles an express choice by some states ... to regulate medical marijuana differently" wrote O'Connor.

On the cruise ship issue, The Supreme Court, expanding the scope of a landmark federal disabilities law, ruled Monday that foreign cruise lines sailing in U.S. waters must provide better access for passengers in wheelchairs.

The narrow 5-4 decision is a victory for disabled rights advocates, who said inadequate ship facilities inhibited their right to "participate fully in society."

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that except for regulating a vessel's internal affairs, the law applied to foreign ships in U.S. waters to the same extent that it applied to American ships in those waters.

He said the law's own limitations and qualifications would prevent it from imposing requirements that would conflict with international obligations or threaten shipboard safety.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Scalia said in dissent he would hold that the law does not apply to foreign-flag cruise ships.

"Title III plainly affects the internal order of foreign-flag cruise ships, subjecting them to the possibility of conflicting international obligations," Scalia wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as well as Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas.

Over ten million Americans take cruises every year, the majority of Cruise Lines are not US owned. In the situation that brought about this lawsuit, I can understand demanding equal access since two disabled persons were charged a higher rate yet the ships in question were not designed to allow them equal access. However, to demand that all cruise ships that enter US waters follow U.S. Disability Laws isn't going to cause them to spend the millions necessary to retrofit each ship to meet these laws. What it will do is make them use other ports that are not within the US. Not being a lawyer or of course a Judge, logic to me would be a ruling limited to those who currently charge more to disabled passengers must provide equal access.

So we have two rulings, one which states Federal Laws superceeds State Laws in States that have voted on allowing the use of marijuna by sick patients, and Federal Law superceeds any Foreign Law on ships in US Waters......