POT FOR PATIENTS

Efforts to make marijuana use legal for reducing pain and nausea in
patients suffering devastating diseases were dealt a setback Monday when
the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that federal narcotics law permitted no
exemption for medicinal use. The ruling specifically referred to an
Oakland, Calif., cooperative that distributed marijuana for this purpose.
Lawyers were unsure of the impact on individuals' use or on distribution by
a state government, which Maine and Nevada are considering.

But there is a straightforward way for Congress to end the uncertainty and
let states set their own courses. Lawmakers could pass the bill sponsored
by Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, which would put marijuana in the
category of controlled substances that do have a medical purpose, such as
morphine, and can legally be used with a doctor's prescription.

Under Frank's bill, the nine states that have given marijuana this status
in their own laws (there will be a hearing on such legislation in the
Massachusetts House tomorrow) would no longer be in the legal limbo that
the conflict with federal law has created. Other states could adopt this
approach or continue to ban marijuana for all purposes.

If Congress passed the Frank bill, it might just get the approval of
President George Bush. As Justice John Paul Stevens noted, Bush in 1999
said he was opposed to legalizing marijuana for medical use but also said,
"I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose."

Advocates of the medicinal use of marijuana were encouraged by the 1999
report of the prestigious Institute of Medicine, a private, nonprofit
agency chartered by Congress to provide policy advice, which found that the
drug could be useful in treating patients with cancer, AIDS, and other
diseases. The report, which said there was no evidence that marijuana is a
"gateway" to harder drugs, predicted that its future as a medicine would be
in the development of pharmaceuticals or other delivery systems, such as a
vaporizer, that used marijuana's active ingredients.

The institute had studied the issue at the behest of President Clinton's
drug czar, Barry R. McCaffrey, who was concerned by the trend of states
adopting medicinal-use laws. The study called for more study of the effect
of marijuana's active ingredients on pain and nausea. Such study has been
limited not just by the federal ban and the government's reluctance to
supply a source of the drug, but also by the fact that it is not patentable
and no pharmaceutical company will reap profits from developing it.

The Frank bill calls on the National Institute of Drug Abuse to make
marijuana available for study under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

There are many legal drugs physicians can recommend for pain and nausea.
But if some patients find marijuana best for their needs, politicians
should not stand in their way.