SUPREME COURT REJECTS MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Justices Say Drug Remains Illegal For All Purposes

John Precup insists he's not a criminal even though he frequently breaks
the law.

He's a 37-year-old Mansfield resident with multiple sclerosis who has been
smoking marijuana regularly to combat persistent nausea and dizziness.

And as president of the Ohio Patient Network, he has been lobbying state
lawmakers for several months to try to get them to recognize the medicinal
use of marijuana.

His efforts, however, were dealt a major blow yesterday, when the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that a federal law classifying marijuana as illegal
made no exception for ill patients.

The 8-0 decision disappointed Precup and others who claim to get relief
from marijuana for a variety of illnesses -- everything from AIDS to cancer.

Advocates of the medical use of marijuana say the drug can ease side
effects of chemotherapy, save nauseated AIDS patients from wasting away,
and even allow multiple sclerosis sufferers to rise from a wheelchair and walk.

Although it can't be prescribed, Precup said his doctor knows he uses the
drug to curb his nausea.

"How can they tell me not to do something that my body and my doctor tells
me is right?" Precup asked.

The court's action does not strike down laws in those states that allow the
medical use of marijuana. However, it leaves those distributing the drug
for that purpose open to prosecution.

Voters in California, Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington have approved ballot initiatives allowing the use of medical
marijuana. In Hawaii, the legislature passed a similar law and the governor
signed it last year.

The case before the Supreme Court was triggered in 1998 by the federal
government when it sought an injunction against the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative and five other marijuana distributors that went into business
after Californians legalized medicinal marijuana use.

"In the case of the Controlled Substances Act, the statute reflects a
determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception
(outside the confines of a government-approved research project)," Justice
Clarence Thomas wrote.

Thomas wrote the act states marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use."

Justice Stephen Breyer did not participate in the marijuana ruling because
his brother, a federal judge, initially presided over the case.

Those who get relief from smoking the drug were angered -- but not
surprised -- by yesterday's ruling.

"The courts have never been a refuge for us," said John Hartman, president
of the Northcoast Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws.

The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative argued that a drug may not yet have
achieved general acceptance as a medical treatment, but may still have
medical benefits to a particular patient or class of patients.

And, in fact, a recent report issued by the Institute of Medicine and
funded by the federal Office of National Drug Control concluded that more
research should be done on the medicinal effects of marijuana.

The report advocated that compassionate use of marijuana be allowed under
certain, narrow circumstances. It also advised against use of smoked
marijuana for medical problems and called for the development of a medical
inhaler.

Justice John Paul Stevens, though joining in the overall ruling, said in a
concurring opinion with two colleagues that the decision went too far.

It should have left open the possibility that an individual could raise a
medical necessity defense, especially a patient "for whom there is no
alternative means of avoiding starvation or extraordinary suffering,"
Stevens said.

He said the ruling could lead to friction between the federal government
and states that have passed medical marijuana laws.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the Norml Foundation, said the
court's decision begs a question: "What will the multitude of federal
prosecutors do in the nine states that have passed medical access laws?"

Norml stands for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"Surely the prosecutors can't hope to arrest and attempt to prosecute
individual medical marijuana patients," St. Pierre said.