MARIJUANA GRIDLOCK

High Court Signals No Room For Medicinal Use.

As researchers in California were announcing plans for a center to study
whether marijuana has medicinal uses, the justices of the United States
Supreme Court were dampening hopes that there was room in federal law for
such a use of the substance. The two events exemplify how our judicial and
electoral systems have yet to resolve the conflict over marijuana.

The public in eight states, including California via Proposition 215, have
approved initiatives to legalize marijuana as medicine. But federal judges
don't obey the will of the voters; instead they follow the letter of a
federal law that bans marijuana, period.

Is there wiggle room in the federal law? United States District Judge
Charles Breyer didn't see any back in 1998 when he barred the Oakland
Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative from "engaging in the manufacture or
distribution of marijuana."

Yet the jurists of the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals saw
things differently, and they floated a legal balancing act of sorts. Yes,
federal law bans marijuana. But the law doesn't override "medical
necessity," said the appellate justices.

So the ban doesn't apply "to seriously ill individuals who need cannabis
for medicinal purposes." The high court has quickly stepped in, however, to
keep the outright ban on marijuana use intact. By a 7-1 vote, the Supreme
Court has issued an emergency order that sets aside the 9th Circuit's legal
theories until arguments from both sides are heard later this year.

While the high court hasn't issued its final ruling in the case, issuing
this emergency order gives a strong signal about their thinking.

The tidiest legal solution would be for Congress to allow every state to
regulate marijuana's medicinal use for itself. States already have great
authority to regulate the practice of medicine. In many respects,
delegating the marijuana decisions to states would be consistent with this
existing division of powers.

Yet Congress would have to relinquish control of marijuana rules to the
states. That is not likely any time soon.

At least new research through centers such as the new one in California
will help resolve just how medicinal marijuana truly is.

In the meantime, the will of the public and the law of the land will
continue to collide.