COURT RULES AGAINST MEDICAL MARIJUANA

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal law does not
allow a "medical necessity" exception to the prohibition on the
distribution of marijuana.

The 8-0 decision dealt a setback, but not a definitive blow, to a movement
that has succeeded in passing ballot initiatives permitting the medical use
of marijuana in nine states.

The ruling did not overturn the state initiatives or address any question
of state law.

Rather, the court ruled that marijuana's listing by Congress as a "Schedule
I" drug under the Controlled Substances Act meant that it "has no currently
accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."

In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the justices ruled that the
federal appeals court in San Francisco misread federal law when it ruled
last year that an Oakland marijuana cooperative could raise a medical
necessity defense against the federal government's effort to shut the
pharmacylike cooperative.

The cooperative distributes marijuana to patients whose doctors say they
need the drug to alleviate the symptoms of cancer, AIDS and other illnesses.

The Justice Department brought the case as a request for an injunction
rather than as a criminal prosecution, which would have required a jury trial.

Since nearly three-quarters of Oakland's voters supported California's
Proposition 215, the 1996 voter initiative that enacted the Compassionate
Use Act to permit the medical use of marijuana, the government would have
faced a daunting challenge in finding a jury willing to convict someone for
making marijuana available.

The question before the Supreme Court on Monday was a relatively narrow
one: not the validity of the California initiative itself but of the
federal courts' response to the government's request for an injunction.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, ordered the trial
judge, Federal District Judge Charles Breyer, to tailor an injunction that
would permit those with a serious medical condition that could be
alleviated only by marijuana to have continued access to the drug.

The Clinton administration, asserting that the 9th Circuit had committed an
error that threatened to undermine enforcement of drug laws, persuaded the
Supreme Court to grant a stay of Breyer's ruling in August. Justice Stephen
Breyer did not participate in any phase of the case because Judge Charles
Breyer, who sits in San Francisco, is his younger brother.