DESPITE COURT RULING, MEDICAL MARIJUANA REMAINS READILY AVAILABLE

SAN FRANCISCO -- In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court said it's
illegal to sell or possess marijuana for medical use, the decision
appears to be having little effect in the eight states with medical
marijuana laws. "I dispense a couple pounds a month," said Jim
Green, operator of the Market Street Club, where business has thrived
even after the May 14 ruling. "All of my clients have a legitimate
and compelling need."

A worker at a San Francisco cannabis buyers club weighs marijuana.
(AP)

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and
Washington allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke
marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution.
Those states have done little to change since the Supreme Court ruled
federal law prohibits people from dispensing marijuana to the ill.
Some states have even moved to expand marijuana laws despite the
ruling. State prosecutors say it's up to federal authorities, not
them, to enforce the court's decision. "If the feds want to prosecute
these people, they can," said Norm Vroman, the district attorney in
Northern California's Mendocino County, where the sheriff issues
medical marijuana licenses to residents with a doctor's
recommendation, or to people who grow the marijuana for them.

In Maine, "state prosecutors aren't too involved with enforcing the
federal law," said state attorney general spokesman Chuck Dow. In
response to the high court's decision, however, Maine lawmakers
shelved an effort to supply marijuana to the ill.

The Bush administration, which inherited the medical marijuana fight
from President Clinton, has taken no public action to enforce the
ruling and has been silent about its next move. "There's generally
no comment about what the government will do in the future in any
context," said Mark T. Quinlivan, the Justice Department's lead
attorney in the Supreme Court case. Leslie Baker, head of the U.S.
attorney's Portland, Ore., drug-enforcement unit, said last week that
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's office has not given her
guidance on how to respond to the ruling.

Oregon allows "caregivers" to grow and dispense marijuana for
patients who have a doctor's recommendation. Baker declined to say
what federal authorities may do in the state.

Meanwhile, Nevada lawmakers, abiding by a voter referendum, on June 4
adopted a medical marijuana measure that Gov. Kenny Guinn said he
would sign. In California, the nation's first state to approve
medical marijuana in 1996, the Senate approved legislation June 6
legalizing marijuana cooperatives for the sick. Three days earlier,
Colorado expanded its medical marijuana law, complying with a state
voter initiative that requires the state to license medical marijuana
users.

That was despite the opposition of Gov. Bill Owens and the state's
attorney general, who urged federal authorities to prosecute anybody
who sells, distributes or grows medical marijuana, even if they
qualify for the state program. At the Market Street Club in
California, the marijuana goes to patients such as Grant Magner, 49,
of Novato, who says it reduces nausea and headaches resulting from
AIDS and gives him enough of an appetite to eat. "It gives me a
slight feeling of wellness.

I can not smoke marijuana, and watch my body waste away," he said.
The absence of federal action has led to speculation about the Bush
administration's strategy. "I think they are biding their time and
are being very careful for which organizations or persons they are
going to target first after this U.S. Supreme Court decision because
that is what is going to get all of the media attention," said Tim
Lynch, the Cato Institute director of criminal justice studies.

The Justice Department may take no action in hopes that the decision
will scare medical marijuana providers out of business, said Mark
Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the University of California at Los
Angeles. The public silence also may reflect that the White House
has more important issues to handle. "That is not what they're
talking about in the Capitol and the corridors of the White House,"
said presidential analyst Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

Any federal crackdown may open a Pandora's box of new legal
questions, said Robert Raich, the lawyer for the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers Cooperative. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Oakland
club could not defend its actions against federal drug laws by
declaring it was dispensing marijuana to the medically needy. But the
justices said they addressed only the issue of a so-called "medical
necessity defense" being at odds with a 1970 federal law that
marijuana, like heroin and LSD, has no medical benefits and cannot be
dispensed or prescribed by doctors. Important constitutional
questions remain, such as Congress' ability to interfere with
intrastate commerce, the right of states to experiment with their own
laws and whether Americans have a fundamental right to marijuana as
an avenue to be free of pain. Justice Thomas wrote that the court
would not decide those "underlying constitutional issues today."

The case is United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, 00-151.