UP IN SMOKE

The saddest consequence of yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
outlaws distributing marijuana as a "medical necessity" is that many
sick people will suffer unnecessarily because they don't have an
illegal drug connection.

Recreational potheads will have no problem scoring lids, but
law-abiding patients will have to grow it themselves or purchase it
from a criminal source.

For many patients that will mean doing without an effective palliative
they say works to ease the agonies of a host of illnesses.

The high court's 8-to-0 decision supported the federal Controlled
Substances Act that states marijuana has "no currently accepted
medical use" and banned its distribution by so-called "cannabis clubs."

It was a major setback for the medical marijuana movement, and more
specifically, for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, which had
argued pot is a "medical necessity" for many patients.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said "medical
necessity is not a defense to manufacturing and distributing
marijuana," and that pot has "no currently accepted medical use at
all."

It is a shortsighted ruling that ignores significant anecdotal
evidence of its effectiveness.

California was the first state in the union to legalize pot as
medicine with the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 that permitted
patients to use, grow and possess pot if it was recommended by a doctor.

Eight other states have passed similar laws, and they have all been at
loggerheads with federal law that lists marijuana with cocaine,
heroin, methamphetamines and other dangerous drugs.

Medical pot advocates insisted that the high court's ruling does not
affect the validity of state laws that allow patients to grow and use
small amounts of marijuana as medicine.

However, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer says "federal law trumps
state enactments," but he is reviewing the decision. "It is
unfortunate that the court was unable to respect California's historic
role as a 'laboratory' for good public policy and a leader in the
effort to help sick and dying residents who have no hope for relief
other than through medical marijuana," he said.

For years, advocates of marijuana as medicine have argued that pot
works for an array of medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS,
migraine headaches, epilepsy, asthma and chronic pain.

It would take an act of Congress to restore the medical marijuana option.
Congress should do so as a matter of humanity and medical necessity in
many cases.