OAKLAND MEDICAL-MARIJUANA CASE GOES TO U.S. SUPREME COURT

Ruling To Decide If State Laws Can Survive A Federal Prohibition

In agreeing to review a medical-marijuana case from Oakland, the U.S.
Supreme Court has put itself in a position to decide how far states can go
in making otherwise illegal drugs available to their residents for health
reasons.

The court granted a hearing yesterday to the Clinton administration, which
argued that federal drug laws would be undermined by a lower court ruling
last year in favor of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative.

The ruling, due by the end of June, will also test the conservative
majority's devotion to states' rights. The justices have limited federal
sovereignty in areas such as age discrimination, handgun background checks
and violence against women, but have not yet examined the war on drugs
through the same prism.

In the nation's first ruling of its kind, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San
Francisco allowed seriously ill patients and their suppliers to win an
exemption from the federal ban on marijuana if they could prove medical
necessity -- a serious medical condition threatening imminent harm that
can't be prevented by legal medicines.

Marijuana, legalized for medical purposes under state law by California
voters in 1996, is used to combat pain and the debilitating, sometimes
life-threatening, side effects of treatments for AIDS and cancer. It is
also used to revive the appetites of AIDS patients suffering from a lethal
wasting syndrome.

The government "has offered no evidence to rebut (a marijuana club's)
evidence that cannabis is the only effective treatment for a large group of
seriously ill individuals," the three-judge appellate panel said in
September 1999.

Justice Department lawyers argued that the ruling flies in the face of
Congress' determination that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical
use. " They said the federal law allows marijuana use only in tightly
regulated medical experiments, such as the one approved last week for 60
AIDS patients in San Mateo County.

The Supreme Court will not rule directly on the legality of California's
Proposition 215 or medical-marijuana laws in eight other states: Alaska,
Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Colorado. But the
ruling is likely to determine whether those laws can co-exist with the
seemingly absolute federal prohibition on marijuana.

"I think we've got a very strong argument, based on the way the (federal
drug) statute has been applied, that it leaves the door open for unusual
circumstances to permit medical use of marijuana," said Gerald Uelmen, a
Santa Clara University law professor and lawyer for the Oakland cooperative.

"I hope the Supreme Court will consider the needs of the patients who are
suffering," said Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland cooperative.
"We have had members die during this litigation."

Jones spent the day fielding questions from reporters, patients and
customers at the downtown storefront, which now serves as a hemp store and
patient resource center. He recalled taking up the cannabis cause after his
father, Wayne, died of kidney cancer in 1988 in his hometown of Rapid City,
S.D.

He saw a healthy 200-pound man deteriorate from lack of nourishment to the
point that he was unable to walk up stairs.

"When I found out about marijuana being an agent to deal with nausea,
something erupted in me," said Jones, now 26.

Also at the cooperative to apply for membership was Linda Rollett, 54, of
Napa. While suffering from colon cancer, she has encountered a wasting
syndrome, lost interest in eating, and dropped from 140 to 82 pounds.

Marijuana "relaxes me so that I can eat, and I need to eat," Rollett said.
"If I'm not hungry my digestive system does not work."

Lawyers say the 2,000-member cooperative is one of about 35 organizations
that have blossomed in California to supply medical marijuana since the
passage of Proposition 215 in 1996. Only a handful have been targeted by
the federal government, but that could change after the Supreme Court rules.

The clubs filled a gap in the loosely drafted initiative, which allowed
patients to possess and use marijuana based on a doctor's recommendation
but provided no legal means to obtain the drug, other than cultivation for
medical use.

Some marijuana clubs have reached agreement with local authorities to keep
their doors open, regulate their operations and avoid prosecution under
state drug-distribution laws.

Oakland has declared a public health emergency and designated the marijuana
cooperative an agent of the city. Marijuana clubs in San Francisco can rely
on ID cards issued by the city's Department of Public Health to residents
who have a doctor's recommendation for the drug.

Along similar lines, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer has argued that
law enforcement and health needs can be accommodated with a
medical-necessity rule for marijuana. He wrote to U.S. Attorney General
Janet Reno urging her not to appeal the Circuit Court ruling that exempted
some patients from the drug law.

The Clinton administration campaigned relentlessly against Proposition 215,
both before and after its passage.

Federal authorities threatened to revoke the prescription licenses of
doctors who recommended marijuana, but were thwarted by a federal judge.
The Justice Department also filed suit in 1998 against a half-dozen
marijuana clubs in Northern California -- the case that has now reached the
Supreme Court.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush has said states should decide whether to allow
medical marijuana within their boundaries.

The Supreme Court has intervened in the case before, voting 7-1 in August
to prevent the Oakland cooperative from resuming marijuana distribution
while the government's appeal of the Circuit Court ruling was pending.

That order blocked a ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who had
responded to the appeals court's decision by allowing the cooperative to
supply marijuana to patients who could show a medical necessity.

Breyer is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who has
excluded himself from the court's consideration of the case.

Chronicle staff writer George Raine contributed to this report.