NEWSTALK: FOR MEDICINAL USE ONLY

Supreme Court Agrees To Be Arbitrator In State Vs. Federal Marijuana
Dispute

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court entered the debate over medical marijuana
yesterday, 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 P. Carnegie, said 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 have had laws 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.

In Arizona, voters approved a statute in 1996 and again in 1998 that allows
doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical uses. But doctors have been
reluctant to write prescriptions because of the federal restrictions.

Justice Department lawyers said Congress has decided that 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.

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 the voters in 1996, authorizes the possession
and use of marijuana for medical purposes upon 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
cooperative, asking a judge to ban it from providing marijuana.

(SIDEBAR)

TALK ABOUT THE NEWS

* Should doctors be allowed to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes?
Why or why not?

* Should states such as Arizona - which approved the use of medical
marijuana through voter referendums - be allowed to proceed with their
plans despite a contradictory federal law?

* Are there other disagreements between state and federal rules on
marijuana that should be reconsidered?

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