The Red Queen's Race

I got one After Final amendment in my Expedited docket this week, so I dealt with it expeditiously. I finished an Office Action on one of my two regular Amended cases, and worked on e other amendment, but didn't finish it before heading home Friday evening, so I'm down to one amendment.

I also finished a first action on my oldest Regular New case this week, and next week, I hope to deal at least one other Regular New.

A Skirmish in the War on (Some) Drugs

A grandmother and cancer patient has been jailed in Kansas for driving under the influence of Marinol, which was prescribed for her, and which is not the same as smoked marijuana.

I admit that there's a certain logic to it: when I was studying for my driver's license in Pennsylvania more than thirty years ago, I read that it was illegal to drive under the influence of narcotics, and that it was not a defense that the narcotics had been legally prescribed by a physician. I can understand that no one, not even a cancer-stricken grandmother, should be free to drive if she is drugged so as to be a public menace behind the wheel.

As I understand it, though, there is no reason to believe that she was a menace behind the wheel. Marinol is not the same as morphine or phenobarbital in its effects, or even the same as a large dose of actual marijuana. However, she was assumed to be impaired by reason of taking it, and therefore convicted.

Thank Heavens she was only sentenced to two days.

Beyond the individual injustice, this seems to me to be the kind of thing that results from the War on (Some) Drugs mentality.