COURT BARS MEDICINAL MARIJUANA USE IN STATE

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court yesterday barred distribution of marijuana
to people in California whose doctors recommend it for medicinal purposes.

The court, voting 7-1 to grant an emergency Clinton administration request,
postponed the effect of federal court rulings that would have allowed a
California club to distribute the illegal drug for medicinal use.

Government lawyers had sought emergency help from Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor, who referred the request to the full court.

Only Justice John Paul Stevens dissented. He said the government "has
failed to demonstrate that the denial of necessary medicine to seriously
ill and dying patients will advance the public interest or that the failure
to enjoin the distribution of such medicine will impair the orderly
enforcement of federal criminal statutes."

Justice Stephen Breyer disqualified himself from the case. His brother,
Charles, a federal trial judge in San Francisco, had previously ruled in
the case.

The highest court's action, which came in a brief order, was the latest
development in a conflict between federal narcotics laws and a 1996
California voters' initiative known as Proposition 215.

The state initiative allows seriously ill patients to grow and use
marijuana for pain relief, with a doctor's recommendation, without state
penalties. But federal law says marijuana has no medical purposes and
cannot be administered safely under medical supervision.

Initiatives similar to California's have been passed in Alaska, Arizona,
Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.

In the California case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that
"medical necessity" is a "legally cognizable defense" to a charge of
distributing drugs in violation of a federal law, the Controlled Substances
Act.

Because of that ruling, Judge Charles Breyer said the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative could provide marijuana to people facing imminent harm
from serious medical conditions and for whom legal alternatives to
marijuana cause intolerable side effects or do not work.

The Supreme Court put Breyer's order on hold. The Supreme Court's decision
to stay the 9th Circuit ruling was not surprising; it would have been
extraordinary for the highest court in the land not to let the government
have its day before the tribunal. The court will decide whether to hear the
case when it returns for its fall term.

Justice Department lawyers called the 9th Circuit court's "unprecedented
ruling" a dangerous one because it created "incentives for drug
manufacturers and distributors to invoke the asserted needs of others as a
justification for their drug trafficking."

The government's emergency request said allowing such distribution of
marijuana would "promote disrespect and disregard for an act of Congress
that is central to combating illicit drug trafficking and use by giving a
judicial stamp of approval to the open and notorious distribution of
(illegal) substances to potentially thousands of users without any of the
strict controls required" by federal law.

In response, lawyers for the marijuana club argued that the government's
emergency request be rejected.

"The government has provided no evidence that states . . . that have passed
medical cannabis laws have any difficulty prosecuting violations of their
drug statutes," they said.

The case is U.S. vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, A-145.

Reuters and the New York Times News Service contributed to this report.