PRESCRIBE POT?

Court Draws Line Between Speech, Smoke

The legal haze surrounding medicinal marijuana became a little clearer
thanks to a recent ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

By this court's logic (which sometimes is not all that logical), it is OK
for a physician to "prescribe" pot (which really means to suggest that a
patient use it) or to speak in favor of its use. This ruling doesn't clear
up other conflicts between state and federal laws, such as whether that
same patient can grow, purchase or somehow obtain the marijuana and then
possess it. But at least for now, the doctor-patient relationship remains
above the legal fray.

This was a weak case against the doctors who are recommending marijuana to
their patients. Attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department had argued that
the advice of these physicians amounted to a blow in the government's
overall war against illegal drugs.

Setting aside for a moment the touchy issue about whether medicinal
marijuana should be legal, there is some research (not conclusive) to give
this treatment some credibility.

The strongest case may be as an agent to combat nausea, particularly for
patients with AIDS or cancer battling the side effects of their treatments.
This doesn't come from the scientific fringe, but from sources such as the
White House Office of National Drug Control.

States regulate the practice of medicine, but a federal license is needed
in order to prescribe certain potentially addictive drugs that are medical
mainstays. Taking this license away would be a severe economic blow to many
physicians.

The circuit court came to view this case as one about doctors and free
speech, not medicinal marijuana. Both in the court of public opinion, and
before three jurists, the tactic of muzzling the physicians didn't go over
very well. The case struck "at core First Amendment interests of doctors
and patients," wrote Mary M. Schroeder, the circuit's chief judge.

The federal crusade against these physicians is reinforcing the notion that
when it comes to medicinal marijuana, Washington should be giving states
more leeway, not less. California, which legalized medicinal marijuana
under state law when it passed Proposition 215 back in 1996, is now one of
nine states with similar laws on the books.

State courts are beginning to figure out ways to make these laws work. The
California Supreme Court recently set some reasonable ground rules for how
law enforcement and the courts should handle patients discovered growing
their own pot.

Surely there are more fertile fields for the Bush administration to plow in
the war against drugs than to go after these patients and their physicians.