BUSH SHOULD HEED THE GRASS ROOTS ON POT QUESTION

There's one tiny bit of good news in this week's unanimous Supreme
Court decision against medical marijuana. You can't blame it on George
Bush. You have to lay blame for this one squarely where it belongs: on
Bill Clinton and Barry McCaffrey, his heartless, overzealous drug czar.

McCaffrey's problem is, he probably never smoked pot in college. Had
he taken a few tokes, he would know that the garbage he spews about
marijuana being a threshold drug, leading users to ruined lives of
addiction to cocaine and heroin, is simply, well, garbage. There is no
evidence that recreational marijuana smokers become serious drug addicts.

McCaffrey is so convinced of the evils of cannabis that he'd prevent
his own mother, if she were suffering from terminal cancer, from
puffing on a joint to get relief. "Smoking a joint is no more
effective than 'downing two glasses of vodka on dealing with pain," he
told NBC News. "You're drunk and you're still in pain."

What does he know? Listen instead to Angel McClary, 35, of San
Francisco, who's been taking marijuana to fight the side effects of an
inoperable brain tumor and a seizure disorder. "My question to the
government is, why haven't they taken us off the battlefield?" she
told CNN after the Supreme Court decision. "We're the ones sick. Why
are they attacking the weak of our country? There are American
citizens who are suffering and dying. If it wasn't for cannabis, I
wouldn't be just in a wheelchair, I'd be dead."

It was the uninformed McCaffrey who convinced Clinton to sue states
that had recognized the valuable and merciful use of marijuana,
especially for those in the terminal stages of cancer or AIDS. Voters
in eight states - California, Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington - have done so by ballot initiative.
Hawaii became the ninth state by an act of the Legislature.

The fact that so many voters in so many states approved medicinal
marijuana proves this is no oddball, outlaw conspiracy. Grass is only
available, through special clinics or cooperatives, to patients whose
doctors say they need it. The conservative California Medical
Association has ruled that the use of medical marijuana is consistent
with its "core belief that patients should not suffer unnecessarily
when other options fail."

But the strongest testimonial to the therapeutic value of marijuana
comes from patients like McClary, suffering from AIDS, cancer,
multiple sclerosis and other incurable diseases. They've learned that
only grass can ease the side effects of chemotherapy, save nauseated
AIDS patients from wasting away or even allow MS patients to get out
of their wheelchairs and take a few steps.

For them, the Supreme Court's 8-0 decision against medical marijuana
amounts to a cruel and unnecessary punishment. But still, as bad as it
is, the court's decision is not the end of the road. There are two
openings for change.

First, while declaring the distribution of marijuana by medical
clinics to be illegal, the court did not, nor was it asked to, declare
the use of marijuana by cancer patients illegal. Which means people can
still grow their own. Or clinics could convert into greenhouses, where
patients tend their own plants. Second, the court's decision is
meaningless unless federal agents swoop into nine states and shut down
marijuana clinics. That puts the ball squarely in Bush's court. He
would have to give the Justice Department the green light to act and
may not do so. As governor of Texas, Bush said that, while he
personally opposed the medical use of marijuana, "I believe each state
can choose that decision as they so choose." As president, we can only
hope he continues to support states' rights.