SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S SUIT AGAINST MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The Supreme Court will enter the debate over whether seriously ill patients
can use marijuana, bringing to the legal forefront an issue that has long
lingered on the national periphery.

The court said Monday that it would hear the government's appeal in United
States vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative.

The court will decide whether "medical necessity" is a legitimate defense
against federal drug laws that prohibit marijuana distribution.

Nine states -- but neither Missouri nor Kansas -- allow pot to be used by
the seriously ill, who are generally cancer and AIDS patients. Such
patients use the drug to ease pain and nausea and to stimulate their appetites.

Federal authorities have long opposed such state initiatives, saying they
undermine anti-drug efforts.

States' rights -- which the Supreme Court regularly mulls -- are at the
heart of the California case, said Edward Richards, a law professor at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City.

"It's whether the state has the right to allow a substance that the feds
prohibit," Richards said. "The states generally have wide powers in things
that deal with the health and safety of citizens."

Medical marijuana initiatives were most recently approved this month by
voters in Colorado and Arizona. Besides those two and California, states
with medical marijuana laws in place or approved by voters are Alaska,
Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington and Nevada. Washington, D.C., residents
voted in 1998 to allow the medical use of marijuana, but Congress blocked
the measure from becoming law.

"The court is realizing it can no longer dodge the issue," Richards said.
"This will be a hot case. There's a lot of money and passion on both sides."

A decision in favor of the Oakland club would mean "possessing, using and
distributing medical marijuana would be legal under federal law," said
Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. The
organization supports the medical use of pot.

A decision in favor of the federal government would discourage the
distribution of marijuana for medical use and could further encourage
federal law enforcement authorities to take on groups like the Oakland
club. There are about 25 or 30 such groups in the country, Kampia said.

"There could be a systematic purging of medical marijuana distribution
centers if the Supreme Court decision doesn't go our way," Kampia said.

The court will not hear the case until at least February, with a decision
probably coming next summer.

It is impossible to predict how the court will rule, Richards said.

He noted that in 1997 the court intimated that a patient's right to
effective pain relief might trump a state's interest in banning a substance.

The case, Vacco vs. Quill, involved New York physicians who claimed a state
law against physician-assisted suicide interfered with their ability to
properly medicate patients.

The court decided against the physicians but said it might revisit the
question of whether there are constitutional rights to adequate pain
medication.

"The court said, `Unless you can show us they're really interfering, you
haven't got a case,' " Richards said. "They're not saying they'll buy it as
a constitutional right. They're just hinting at it."

It is that hinting that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based its
decision on when they allowed the Oakland club to distribute marijuana,
setting the stage for the Supreme Court fight, Richards said.

"Let's say this is a court on the cutting edge of jurisprudence," Richards
said of the 9th Circuit court. "It may be the most reversed court."

Justice Department lawyers already have pointed out to the Supreme Court
that Congress has decided that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical
use."

In August the Supreme Court put the lower court ruling on hold and barred
the California club from distributing marijuana while the government
pursued its appeal.

Justice Stephen Breyer did not participate in the case. His brother
Charles, a federal trial judge in San Francisco, previously barred
distribution of marijuana, but his decision reversed by the appeals court.

California's law, which voters passed in 1996, authorizes the possession
and use of marijuana for medical purposes upon a doctor's recommendation.

The federal Controlled Substances Act lists marijuana among the drugs that
are illegal to manufacture or distribute.

In January 1998 the federal government filed a lawsuit against the Oakland
club, asking a judge to ban it from providing marijuana.

Judge Charles Breyer ruled for the government. The 9th Circuit court
reversed, saying the government had not disproved the club's evidence that
the drug was "the only effective treatment for a large group of seriously
ill individuals."

Last May, Breyer issued a new order allowing the Oakland group to provide
marijuana to patients who needed it. The government appealed that ruling to
the 9th Circuit, which has not yet ruled.

In the appeal acted on Monday, Justice Department lawyers said the Supreme
Court could grant review now because the 9th Circuit court was not expected
to change its decision.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.