FEDS TO TARGET PRO-POT DOCTORS

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Department of Justice pledged to continue resisting
California's voter-approved medical marijuana law Thursday, arguing that
the government has the right to penalize doctors who recommend cannabis by
revoking their licenses to dispense medication.

Justice department lawyers argued their position in U.S. District Court
here during what may be the final stage of a lawsuit brought by the
American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU contends that the government's
position violates doctors' free speech rights, and that many doctors now
resist recommending pot for fear of losing their federal right to prescribe
medication.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup was expected to rule within weeks,
lawyers said, and the ruling could have broad implications for several
states with similar laws.

Measures similar to California's Proposition 215, which voters passed in
1996, have passed in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington state.

Department of Justice lawyer Joseph W. Lobue told the judge that the
government doesn't care whether California voters approved the so-called
Compassionate Use Act, which allows patients to grow and possess marijuana
for medical use with a doctor's recommendation.

"It doesn't matter what California says," Lobue argued.

Lobue said the government would take the same position "in Oklahoma if they
had that law."

Legal jockeying in California began three years ago when White House drug
policy chief Barry McCaffrey said that doctors who recommended marijuana
would lose their federal licenses to prescribe controlled substances. He
said the doctors would be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid and could
face criminal charges.

In 1997, a federal judge issued a temporary order prohibiting the
government from taking such action pending the case's resolution.

The 10 doctors and five of their patients, all of whom are represented by
the ACLU, say marijuana can be beneficial to patients with AIDS, HIV,
cancer, glaucoma, and seizures or muscle spasms associated with chronic,
debilitating conditions.

The government's position is that marijuana has no proven medical benefits
and that the Federal Drug Administration has not authorized doctors to even
recommend it.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has urged Attorney General Janet
Reno to ease the federal government's resistance to California's attempts
to implement its initiative.

"The voters in my state have endorsed the medicinal use of marijuana,"
Lockyer wrote to Reno in October.

In Thursday's case, Judge Alsup appeared perplexed by the government's
position. He said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September
that the government cannot prosecute someone who uses marijuana "as a
medical necessity."

"If that's true, who's going to declare if it's a medical necessity if it's
not a doctor?" the judge asked Lobue. "How do you square that, holding with
your position in this case that a doctor cannot even recommend marijuana?"

Lobue responded by saying that a doctor should have to decide what
constitutes a medical necessity in federal court, before trying to decide
in a medical office. Doing that, Lobue said, would prevent the government
from trying to revoke that doctor's license to dispense drugs.

"The physician would have to testify," Lobue said.