OAKLAND 'POT' CLUB CASE TO TOP COURT

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative can use medical necessity as a defense against the federal ban
on marijuana's use.

This will be the first time the nation's highest court has addressed
medical marijuana. The Oakland cooperative would have preferred it if the
court had rejected the case -- as it stands now, lower courts have let the
club distribute marijuana to seriously ill patients. The Justice Department
sought this final appeal, but would not comment when it was granted Monday.

"We hope that the Supreme Court will exercise its authority in a wise and
judicious manner, and consider the needs of many seriously ill, suffering
Americans -- patients whose doctors have found cannabis is the only therapy
that will prolong or bring meaning to their lives," said cooperative
attorney Robert Raich.

This legal development deals with a temporary injunction the government won
to keep the cooperative from dispensing marijuana while the full case is
briefed and argued. Raich said the high court will hear arguments this
spring and issue a decision by the end of June.

"We hope that it will vindicate Californians that voted on allowing
patients to have compassionate access to this medicine, and that it
vindicates the citizens of the many other States that also passed
compassionate access laws," cooperative director Jeff Jones said in a news
release.

Californians in 1996 approved Proposition 215, which was meant to let
seriously ill patients with a doctor's assent get and use marijuana without
fear of prosecution. Cancer and AIDS patients use the drug's
appetite-boosting effect to combat nausea and weight loss; others use it to
fight symptoms of glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, multiple sclerosis and
other ills.

Seven other states -- including Nevada and Colorado, which approved ballot
initiatives just this month -- also have medical marijuana laws.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a temporary injunction closing
the 2,500-member Oakland cooperative and five other Northern California
clubs in 1998 after the government argued federal law bans all marijuana
distribution and use, regardless of state law.

Last September, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal told Breyer to
reconsider and let the cooperative make a medical necessity argument.
Breyer in July ruled the government failed to dispute this argument, so he
had little choice but to let the cooperative start dispensing marijuana again.

The Justice Department then asked the Supreme Court to review the 9th
Circuit decision. Congress gave the Attorney General and the Secretary of
Health and Human Services power to dictate marijuana policy, the department
argued in its petition: "It has not left that determination to individual
courts or juries -- much less to private organizations like the Oakland
Cannabis Buyers Cooperative."

The Supreme Court in August ordered the cooperative to stop dispensing
marijuana at least until it could decide whether to take the case. That
stay remains in effect.

Federal law -- in this case, the Controlled Substances Act -- always trumps
state laws such as Proposition 215, said Jesse Choper, Earl Warren
Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt
Hall School of Law.

"But I do think there is a decent constitutional argument to be made," he
said. "In the assisted-suicide cases several years ago, there are hints of
varying strength from five justices that denial of relief of great pain to
people who are dying might violate their constitutional rights."

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has recused himself from this case
because the trial judge is his brother.

A separate appeal of Charles Breyer's July ruling will be argued before the
9th Circuit in January.