Copyright: 2003 The Denver Post Corp
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Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MEDICAL POT WINS LEGAL ROUND

A federal appeals court in California has really stirred the pot in the
seemingly never-ending medical marijuana debate by ruling that a 1970 act
of Congress outlawing the weed may not apply to sick people with a doctor's
recommendation to use the stuff.

A three-judge panel held 2-1 that such medical marijuana users can't be
prosecuted under federal law. To reach that conclusion, the normally
ultraliberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals applied some rather conservative
reasoning to hold that the "intrastate non-commercial cultivation,
possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes on the advice of a
physician is, in fact, different in kind from drug trafficking.'

The 1970 Controlled Substances Act doesn't apply to medical pot that
doesn't enter the stream of commerce across state lines, the panel said.
The "commerce clause' in Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress
the power to regulate interstate commerce.

The panel's 2-1 ruling also upheld similar state laws in Alaska, Arizona,
Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state, in addition to California.

Advocates of medical marijuana say smoking the drug relieves symptoms such
as nausea for cancer patients on chemotherapy, for example. Proponents of
medicinal pot say some patients can't keep down THC tablets, an alternative
containing the active ingredient in marijuana.

The 9th Circuit's decision, which takes a distinctly "states' rights'
approach, applies only in states within its jurisdiction, which does not
include Colorado.

We opposed Colorado's medical marijuana law because we felt it was too
broadly written and didn't have adequate controls and protections, such as
requiring a prescription or ensuring quality and purity.

Voters passed the measure, and, for the time being, at least, the federal
law banning marijuana still applies to medical marijuana users in Colorado.

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a decidedly conservative
bent, will probably decide whether the 9th Circuit's reasoning - based on
some of the higher court's own recent decisions - was faulty or not.