MEDICAL POT DEFENSE LOSES

If medical marijuana users want to use their drug, they'll have to
grow it themselves or obtain it illegally, after a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling Monday.

Even then, it's unclear whether they would be safe from prosecution.
Also unclear is the impact the decision will have in the handful of
states--Illinois is not among them--that allow medical use of marijuana.

By an 8-0 vote, justices ruled that marijuana cooperatives and
distribution centers can't use a "medical necessity" defense to
justify giving the drug to patients.

The ruling dealt a major blow to the estimated 50,000 AIDS and cancer
patients nationwide who use marijuana to relieve nausea and other
symptoms and who depend on marijuana "clubs" to get the drug.

Legal experts said the ruling would not bar patients from continuing
to use marijuana in states that allow individuals to use marijuana for
medical reasons. But it effectively cut off legal supplies.

Despite the court defeat, medical-marijuana advocates predicted
prosecutors in states allowing medicinal use of marijuana won't start
prosecuting patients who grow and use small amounts of the drug.

"Surely, the prosecutors can't hope to arrest and attempt to prosecute
individual medical marijuana patients," said Allen St. Pierre,
executive director of the Norml Foundation of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said a 1970 federal law
regulating controlled substances "reflects a determination that
marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception."

The only exemption: for government-funded research that involves 200
people.

Monday's ruling stemmed from a 1998 case in which a federal judge
rejected arguments by the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and five
other medical-marijuana distributors that they could legally provide
the drug to AIDS and cancer patients.

Though he was part of the 8-0 vote Monday, Justice John Paul Stevens
said the court should have left open the possibility an individual
could legally smoke pot if "there is no alternative means of avoiding
starvation or extraordinary suffering."

Voters in Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon
and Washington have approved ballot initiatives allowing medical
marijuana use, and Hawaii's legislature passed a similar law last year.

Medical use of marijuana is not allowed in Illinois, but it's thought
to be a common practice. Northwestern University Medical School
estimates that 360 patients in its AIDS-treatment program use marijuana.

Studies have found the active ingredient in marijuana is beneficial in
relieving nausea and stimulating appetite in certain patients.