SUPREME COURT HEARS OAKLAND POT-CLUB CASE

WASHINGTON -- Although the Supreme Court is usually solicitous of states'
rights, on Wednesday that attitude appeared to stop well short of endorsing
the medicinal use of marijuana, which California voters authorized in a
1996 referendum in defiance of a federal law that considers marijuana to
have "no currently accepted medical use."

Two lower federal courts in California have held that a
marijuana-distribution center in Oakland could invoke "medical necessity"
as a defense against the federal government's effort to get an injunction
to stop the operation of the "cannabis clubs" that sprang up around the
state after passage of Proposition 215, titled the Compassionate Use Act.

Hearing the government's appeal, the justices were openly skeptical that
such a defense could be properly recognized.

When Santa Clara University Professor Gerald Uelmen, attorney for the
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, said the lower courts had recognized
only a "limited exception" for people with a serious need for marijuana and
who lacked a reasonable alternative, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
interjected: "It doesn't sound limited at all."

He said the lower courts had effectively engaged in a "huge rewriting" of
the federal law that places marijuana within Schedule I of controlled
substances, those with no accepted medical use.

As a legal matter, the argument Wednesday was not directly about the
validity of Proposition 215 itself but about what discretion the lower
courts had in responding to the request for the injunction.

Given this narrow focus, the Supreme Court is unlikely to issue a
definitive ruling on the future of the growing number of
medicinal-marijuana initiatives, which have now been adopted by nine
states. The medicinal use of marijuana by individual patients and doctors,
as opposed to distribution through the pharmacy-like cooperatives, is not
directly at issue.

Under questioning for pursuing a civil injunction against the pot clubs
rather than criminal prosecution, Acting Solicitor General Barbara
Underwood told the court that because, in the government's view, "there
simply is no medical-necessity defense," it was more efficient to "get it
resolved systemically in a civil proceeding."

California itself was not a party to the case, but state Attorney General
Bill Lockyer filed a brief on behalf of the Oakland cooperative. "The
federal government threatens to cross the line of state sovereignty and
interfere with a traditional state right," the attorney general said. He
said states had a "right to regulate for the health and welfare of their
citizens."

The California Medical Association also supported the Oakland group, as did
civil liberties and drug-policy organizations and a group of local sheriffs
and other officials from states that have adopted medicinal-marijuana
initiatives.

The briefs contain considerable information about current practices of
using marijuana to combat glaucoma, the nausea of chemotherapy and the
wasting syndrome of AIDS. There is also debate in the briefs over whether a
legal drug called Marinol, a synthetic version of the active ingredient in
marijuana, offers the relief that some patients find in smoking marijuana.

The medical-necessity defense recognized by Judge Charles Breyer of the
U.S. District Court in San Francisco -- and upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals -- is quite narrowly defined. It applies only to those who
suffer from a "serious medical condition"; who will "suffer imminent harm"
without access to marijuana; whose condition or symptoms will be alleviated
by marijuana; and who had "no reasonable legal alternative" to the drug.

Because Breyer is the younger brother of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Justice
Breyer has recused himself from the case, and only eight justices heard the
argument Wednesday morning.

Also Wednesday, the justices struggled over a copyright dispute that pits
freelance writers against some major newspapers and computer databases.

Typically, a paper buys a freelance article that is printed once, and
possibly included in compilations of news articles. But freelancers suing
the New York Times said that when their stories are resold to computer
databases, which in turn sell them again, the original authors should
receive a portion of that payment.

The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.