NO SMOKING

COURT HEARS MEDICAL MARIJUANA CASE

Angel Raich says she became partially paralyzed in 1995 from an
allergic reaction to birth control pills. The Oakland woman has since
been diagnosed, she says, with an inoperable brain tumor, a seizure
disorder and a wasting syndrome.

Raich says she tried dozens of prescription medicines to ameliorate
the pain she endured as a result of her myriad infirmities, but none
of the lawful medications provided relief. So, she says, she started
smoking pot for "medical" purposes, as allowed under a 1996 California
law.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case Raich
initiated in 2002, in which she and a Butte County pot smoker she
recruited challenged the federal government's constitutional authority
to crack down on medical marijuana use in California and other states
in which such use has been legalized.

The matter appeared settled in 2001, when the nation's highest court
ruled, 8-0, that there was no medical marijuana exception to the
federal Controlled Substances Act or the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
The former classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance with a high
potential for abuse. The latter requires that a drug be scientifically
proven safe and effective before it can be used for medicinal purposes.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brazenly
disregarded the high court's 2001 ruling, which overturned a previous
9th Circuit decision. In December of last year, the 9th Circuit
declared that the federal controlled substances law was "likely
unconstitutional" as applied to Raich and her marijuana suppliers.

But that does not appear to be how the Supreme Court sees it, based on
the justices' questions and remarks during oral arguments yesterday. A
majority, it appears, is unwilling to allow state laws - like
California's Proposition 215, which allows individuals to smoke pot
with a doctor's recommendation - to trump federal anti-drug laws.

Indeed, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested medical marijuana supporters
should have made their case to federal drug regulators. "That seems to
me the obvious way to get what they want," he said. "Medicine by
regulation is better than medicine by referendum."

Meanwhile, several justices suggested that allowing medicinal
marijuana use would exacerbate the nation's drug problem. Justice
David Souter, for instance, speculated that there are easily 100,000
cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in California alone, all of
whom could be eligible to smoke pot.

It is easy to sympathize with Angel Raich and others suffering
painful, debilitating infirmities. But if their therapy is to include
marijuana use, that must be authorized at the federal level - by
federal regulators or by Congress, not by ballot propositions or state
legislatures.