HIGH COURT TO HEAR MEDICAL MARIJUANA CASE

Walking inside the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, in a rather
nondescript part of Oakland's downtown district, visitors can quickly
become distracted by the colorful hemp clothing and -- no kidding -- hemp
lip gloss. Well-lit and brightly decorated, it's easy to miss signs of the
cooperative's true business: the just-as-colorful smoking apparatus tucked
into a corner.

Welcome to the front lines of the medical marijuana movement, which faces
its strongest legal test this week since the overwhelming passage of
Proposition 215 four years ago. On Wednesday, attorneys will face off
before the U.S. Supreme Court, trying to somehow reconcile a federal law
that deems marijuana illegal with a California law that allows it for sick
people.

The justices have stepped into a three-year court battle between six
Northern California clubs -- in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Marin
County and Ukiah -- and the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1998, the
Clinton administration filed the injunction to test the issue, and it has
been slowly making its way through the system.

The court will look at a 1999 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals. That court, which sets the law for nine western states, held that
"medical necessity" superceded federal drug laws, allowing marijuana to be
given legally to patients in dire need.

But Oakland attorney Bill Panzer, who coauthored Prop. 215, says the entire
case has little meaning. The definition of "medical necessity" is so
strict, he said, that even if the federal high court rules in the cannabis
clubs' favor, not much would change.

And that may be why Oakland founder Jeff Jones isn't worried about losing
the case.

"I don't think it will kill medical marijuana," he said. "These patients
are trying to end their suffering. They're going to do whatever they can,
and whether it is accepted in a western medical sense or accepted legally
will make little difference."

Much ado

Jones, dressed in a blue suit and tie, said he was spurred to found the
cooperative after watching his father die of kidney cancer. Though only 26,
his hair has begun to gray, a condition he attributes with a small, almost
serious laugh to his legal troubles.

He said he is nonplused about why the federal government even cares about
this case, nor why he should trust them to do the right thing.

"If the feds won't or can't solve our energy issues, why would we want to
leave them with this very important issue, an issue that deals with
peoples' suffering?" he said.

Though eight other states have passed laws allowing cannabis to be used for
medical purposes, and a number of others are gearing up to do the same, pot
clubs in Northern California were the first to raise federal ire.

The issue before the court is narrow, and the justices are unlikely to
decide the fate of medical marijuana laws no matter the outcome. But the
case will likely create some shockwaves because it will indicate how the
court is leaning, providing a clearer picture of medical cannabis' ultimate
fate.

It is also possible the decision would influence a case currently before
the California Supreme Court, which agreed earlier this month to consider
whether Prop. 215 provides immunity from criminal prosecution for medicinal
marijuana users.

Lightning rod

Though this is the first medical marijuana case to reach the Supreme Court,
the law was headed to the courthouse almost immediately after its passage
in 1996. And that's partly due to its controversial and occasionally
outrageous founder, Dennis Peron. Peron has been publicly criticized for
his attempts to completely legalize marijuana, a stance some say
unnecessarily complicates and clouds the issue. Peron, who would often
light-up before television cameras, ran against stringent medical marijuana
opponent and then-state Attorney General Dan Lungren on the 1998 Republican
ticket for governor.

Despite all this, Jones and a number of other activists say it is because
of Peron that anything at all has been accomplished.

"Dennis Peron's major error was that he wanted all uses of marijuana to be
medical," said Jones. "He wanted it to be similar to all other
over-the-counter remedies, or similar to St. John's wort." And people might
be turned off by his in-your-face methods, said Jones, but it's still his
right to say it.

Martin Delaney, founding director of Project Inform, a group that puts on
educational programs dealing with AIDS-related drugs, agrees. The medical
marijuana movement -- a rare point of agreement between Delaney's group and
its traditional nemesis, ACT UP San Francisco -- would never have got off
the ground without Peron.

"When something as controversial as medical marijuana comes out, it's not
unusual to find a charismatic leader like him at the front of it," he said.

"But you have to hand it to him," Delaney added. "He didn't keep riding his
political horse. He got off, and went back to doing whatever it is that he
does. That is, smoke a lot of pot and sell it to his friends."

In any event, said Oakland cooperative attorney Robert Raich, the movement
has continued on from Peron. Raich and Santa Clara University law professor
Gerald Uelmen, who will argue the case before the Supreme Court, are in
Washington D.C., preparing for the big day.

"The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative is simply trying to fulfill its
mission in providing its medicine to very ill Californians," he said,
speaking from his hotel room. "This is not about hippies trying to get stoned."

Though the existence of the club is based on compassion, Raich said, the
cooperative's argument will focus on state's rights.

"Our argument is that California and Californians have the ability to
control their own public health and their own public safety," he said.
"It's really a shame the Clinton administration felt it had to step in for
political reasons."