MARIJUANA BATTLEFIELD?

El Dorado Medicinal 'Garden' Would Test Feds

Some El Dorado citizens are interested in establishing a medicinal
marijuana garden, perhaps the first in California under a new state law.
They may find their endeavor to be fertile ground for a court challenge.

Federal law does not recognize any sanctioned medicinal use of marijuana,
or a buyers' club or a buyers' garden. While federal efforts have failed in
the courts to punish doctors who recommend marijuana or patients who use it
under state guidelines, the final legal battlefield may well be in the
fields. If the feds can't manage a successful prosecution against medicinal
marijuana cultivators, the blanket federal ban against medicinal marijuana
in California essentially loses its teeth. Whether the test case turns out
to originate in El Dorado or somewhere else, the showdown is inevitable.

Since voters in California in 1996 approved the medicinal marijuana
initiative (Proposition 215), the debate has evolved into one over states'
rights. States have long regulated the practice of medicine. And 12 states,
including California, have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. The
science here remains fuzzy; it's unclear, for instance, whether marijuana
really helps combat nausea during chemotherapy. Proposition 215 was fuzzy
on the all-important details as well.

The prevailing public opinion, however, can be detected through the smoke.
The public overwhelmingly is comfortable with the concept of medicinal
marijuana. It doesn't view this as a lost battle in the war on drugs. It
views this as a win for patients' rights.

That's not how the Bush administration sees it. Federal law enforcement
teams have raided various back yards and buyers' clubs throughout the state
in recent years. Yet in some recent key court cases against patients and
doctors, the justices have ruled against the feds and in favor of
defendants who followed state laws.

The cultivation questions are the final frontier. If it takes one more raid
on one more garden to get to the bottom of this, so be it.