The California Supreme Court has handed down a decision that will make the sickest people in the state suffer more. The ruling applies to caregivers. Those who provide medical marijuana to a patient must also provide other assistance, such as housing and medical aid, or they can be prosecuted as drug dealers. No longer can a "care provider" just grow the pot—a skill most aging spouses, mothers, or brothers generally don't have.

The people who need someone else to grow pot for them are the people clinging to life with AIDS, cancer patients struggling to survive chemotherapy, and folks with MS and other miserable, crippling conditions trying to find a bit of relief. They're too sick to cultivate a garden. Have you ever tried growing a garden? Imagine trying it from your deathbed. (Most folks with less severe conditions treated by medical marijuana, such as guys with bad backs and women with fibromyalgia, don't need someone else to grow their pot for them.) Under the new rules, these sickest patients would have to yank themselves out of their hospital and hospice beds to go to a medical marijuana dispensary. But since they are too sick to run errands, many of them won't get the medication to cut the nausea of chemo, reverse the wasting syndrome of AIDS, and calm intractable nerve pain. Nice work, California court.