A medical marijuana patient whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive does not have a constitutional right to stay alive, a federal appeals court ruled today.

Angel Raich, a California mother of two, uses marijuana to treat life-threatening wasting syndrome, seizures, an inoperable brain tumor, and severe chronic pain. "The court has just sentenced me to death," she said after the ruling. "My doctors agree that medical cannabis is essential to my very survival, and the government did not even contest the medical evidence ... If we don't have a right to live, what do we have left?"

Raich's lawyers argued that because her doctors believe medical marijuana is essential to her survival, prosecuting her would violate the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment guarantee that no person may be "deprived of life ... without due process of law."

In its decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there is not yet a constitutional right "to make a life-shaping decision on a physician's advice to use medical marijuana to preserve bodily integrity, avoid intolerable pain, and preserve life, when all other prescribed medications and remedies have failed."

But — significantly — the court suggested that a right to medical marijuana could eventually be recognized as fundamental. The ruling says: "For now, federal law is blind to the wisdom of a future day when the right to use medical marijuana to alleviate excruciating pain may be deemed fundamental. Although that day has not yet dawned, considering that during the last ten years eleven states have legalized the use of medical marijuana, that day may be upon us sooner than expected."

MPP's grants program has paid for much of Raich's litigation. Visit www.mpp.org/news to read some of the news coverage of the decision.

Because the federal courts have refused to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest, it's all the more imperative that Congress act to change federal law. MPP has led the fight in Congress over the last four years, with a record 163 House members voting for a medical marijuana amendment last summer. And, since the Democratic takeover of Congress in November, the congressional outlook for medical marijuana is now better than it has been since I co-founded MPP 12 years ago.

In fact, we have a real chance of passing federal legislation to protect medical marijuana patients this year, but we need you to stand with us. If you agree that seriously ill people should not have to live in fear of armed federal agents breaking down their doors to take away their medicine, would you please make a financial contribution to our lobbying work today?

Our track record of success is growing every year, and we can get the job done. But we're 100% dependent on supporters like you to fund our work.