HIGH COURT REFUSES MARIJUANA CASE, ACCEPTS PORN CASE

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court dealt the Bush administration two defeats
Tuesday, siding with its opponents in cases aimed at curbing the use of
marijuana for medical purposes and policing pornography on the Internet.

The court declined to consider whether the U.S. government can penalize
doctors who discuss the potential benefits of marijuana with cancer
sufferers and others. The White House had asked the court to review a
decision last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that
threatening doctors with the loss of their license for discussing medical
marijuana violated their free-speech rights.

The high court's decision leaves the California appeals court's ruling in
place. Seven of the nine states that permit marijuana use when recommended
or prescribed by a doctor are in the 9th Circuit.

In a separate decision, the court elected to hear a challenge to the 1998
Child Online Protection Act, which is designed to protect children from
pornography by requiring Internet viewers to provide Web site operators with
credit card numbers or some other identification to prove the viewers are
adults. The ACLU says the law impinges on free speech.

As is its custom, the court did not announce why it accepted the Internet
case and rejected the marijuana dispute.

Daniel Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Drug Policy Alliance, which backs
medical marijuana, called the decision a ''huge setback for the federal
government's attempts to wage war on medical marijuana.''

Some cancer sufferers have found that marijuana relieves nausea from
chemotherapy. Glaucoma patients say it can ease head and eye pain.

Administration officials played down the decision's impact on anti-drug
efforts. Tom Riley, spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said advocates of legalized marijuana are ''cynically using''
medical marijuana as a ''Trojan horse'' to weaken support for anti-drug
laws. ''The cultivation and use of marijuana is still illegal,'' he said,
''and that's not going to change.''

But the 9th Circuit's ruling does force the government to rely on more
heavy-handed methods for stopping the use of medical marijuana, such as
prosecuting individual users. Medical marijuana use remains a federal crime,
but it is legal under state laws in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona,
Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, Hawaii and Maine.

So far, the U.S. government has prosecuted only large producers and grower
co-ops that sell to the medical marijuana market. The Drug Policy Alliance
estimates that there are at least 20,000 medical marijuana users in
California alone.

The Child Online Protection Act has not been enforced while it has been
challenged.

The legislation is constitutional, Solicitor General Ted Olson said in a
court brief, because it targets only commercial pornographers.

The ACLU countered that the law is too vague and would interfere with
adults' access to constitutionally protected material. It also would
unfairly affect people who have Web sites dealing with safe sex and other
public health topics that involve sex but are not pornographic, the ACLU
said.

The case is likely to be decided by the end of June.