JUSTICES TO RULE ON MARIJUANA

Feds Oppose Medical Use Of Drug Despite Voters' Backing

WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court entered the debate over medical
marijuana Monday, agreeing to decide whether the drug can be provided
to patients out of "medical necessity" even though federal law makes
its distribution a crime.

The justices said they will hear the Clinton administration's effort
to bar a California group from providing the drug to seriously ill
patients for pain and nausea relief.

A lower court decision allowing the Oakland Cannabis Buyers'
Cooperative to distribute the drug "threatens the government's
ability to enforce the federal drug laws," government lawyers said.

But the California group says that for some patients, marijuana is
"the only medicine that has proven effective in relieving their
conditions or symptoms."

The group's lawyer, Annette Carnegie, said Monday the federal
Controlled Substances Act does not prohibit the distribution of
marijuana for medical reasons.

"Those choices, we believe, are best made by physicians and not by
the government," she said. Marijuana has been effective in relieving
nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, weight loss in
HIV-positive patients and in reducing pain, she said.

Eight states in addition to California have medical-marijuana laws in
place or approved by voters: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon,
Washington, Nevada and Colorado. Residents of Washington, D.C., voted
in 1998 to allow the medical use of marijuana, but Congress blocked
the measure from becoming law.

Justice Department lawyers said Congress has decided marijuana has
"no currently accepted medical use."

In August, the Supreme Court barred the California organization from
distributing marijuana while the government pursued its appeal.

Justice Stephen Breyer did not participate in the case. His brother,
Charles, a federal trial judge in San Francisco, previously barred
distribution of marijuana, only to have his decision reversed by a
federal appeals court.

California's law, passed by voters in 1996, authorizes possession and
use of marijuana for medical purposes on a doctor's recommendation.

The Oakland group said its goal is "to provide seriously ill patients
with safe access to necessary medicine so that these individuals do
not have to resort to the streets."

But the federal Controlled Substances Act includes marijuana among
the drugs whose manufacture and distribution are illegal.

In January 1998, the federal government filed a lawsuit against the
Oakland club, asking a judge to ban it from providing marijuana.

Judge Charles Breyer issued a preliminary order imposing such a ban.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, saying the
government did not disprove the club's evidence that the drug was
"the only effective treatment for a large group of seriously ill
individuals."

Last May, Charles Breyer issued a new order allowing the Oakland
group to provide marijuana to patients who needed it.

In the appeal granted Supreme Court review, Justice Department
lawyers said the appeals court "seriously erred" in deciding the
federal law allowed a medical defense.

The Oakland club's lawyers said "the voters of California have
spoken" in approving the medical-marijuana measure. Congress has not
explicitly barred a medical necessity defense against the federal
anti-drug law, the lawyers added.