MEDICAL MARIJUANA HIGH COURT'S BAN SHOULDN'T STOP THE USE OF A DRUG
MANY CLAIM TO BENEFIT FROM.

Desperately sick and dying Americans who rely on marijuana to ease
their suffering were handed a not unexpected setback last week.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that a three-decade-old federal
antidrug law bans the manufacture or distribution of marijuana even
for medical purposes.

The justices overturned an appeals court ruling that said medical
necessity can be a legal defense to using marijuana.

The case involved an Oakland, Calif., cooperative that distributed
marijuana to AIDS and cancer patients with their doctors' consent.

California voters approved the medical use of marijuana in 1996, but
federal prosecutors have been trying to stop the practice, saying
federal law takes precedence.

The high court's decision will only intensify the debate, not end it.

The court effectively tossed the issue into the lap of Congress,
where it belongs. Congress created this moral dilemma with its
institutional paranoia over drugs in general, and marijuana in
particular.

The GOP-led Congress probably lacks the stomach to write humanitarian
exceptions into the federal law. That's a shame.

Federal opposition to using marijuana as medicine is as irrational as
it is arbitrary.

It is absurd for morphine and more potent, addictive, and deadly
drugs to be available by prescription -- and nicotine over the
counter -- when marijuana is not.

It is equally absurd for the federal government to criminalize the
sick and the dying for pursuing pain relief.

In fact a few courageous states are bypassing Congress on the medical
marijuana issue. Seven have approved the use of marijuana by the sick.

Legal experts say people in those states should be able to continue
using marijuana despite the ruling. However, they will probably have
to get it from black-market sources unless the states intervene.

The state's could start distributing marijuana to the sick because
the federal ban applies to individual people, not states. Nevada and
Vermont currently are debating enabling legislation.

Such bold anti-federal gestures require state politicians to have the
courage of their constituents' convictions. And the well being of
their sickest ones at heart.