MEDICINAL MARIJUANA HAS A POWERFUL ALLY

Lockyer's Support: The Attorney General Urges Reno Not To Appeal A
Judicial Ruling.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court decision that could allow
some seriously ill patients to use marijuana has won the endorsement
of state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who wants the Clinton
administration to drop its objections.

In a letter last week to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, made public
Thursday by supporters of an AIDS patient who wants to use the drug,
Lockyer urged the government not to appeal the precedent-setting Sept.
13 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

``The voters in my state have endorsed the medicinal use of
marijuana,'' Lockyer wrote, referring to Proposition 215, the 1996
initiative that allows the cultivation and use of marijuana to treat
symptoms of certain serious illnesses, with a doctor's
recommendation.

The 3-0 ruling indicated ``medical necessity,'' the need to violate a
law to prevent more serious harm, would be a valid defense to the
prosecution of a marijuana patient or provider under federal laws.

``The court's decision holding that a citizen may present evidence
that use of marijuana, under certain narrow conditions, may be a
lawful exception to the federal drug laws is consistent with the
expression of (the voters') will.''

The letter was dated Oct. 6. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman
Gretchen Michael said Thursday the department hasn't received it yet
and hasn't decided whether to seek a rehearing of last month's ruling.
Its deadline is in late October.

Lockyer supported Proposition 215 and has said he was influenced by
the deaths of his mother and sister from leukemia. He supports a state
bill that would set standards for medicinal use of marijuana and let
county health departments issue registration cards to anyone with a
doctor's recommendation for the drug.

Lockyer has met with Reno and federal drug chief Barry McCaffrey and
urged them, with little apparent success, to ease the federal
government's resistance to California's implementation of its initiative.

Since passage of Proposition 215, the Justice Department has
repeatedly said marijuana remains banned by federal law, with no
medical exception; has threatened to act against doctors who prescribe
the drug; and has sued to shut down six Northern California clubs that
distribute marijuana to patients.

That lawsuit, which has led to closing of four of the clubs, including
those in San Francisco and Oakland, was the basis of the Sept. 13
ruling. The court ordered a federal judge to reconsider his injunction
of last year, which barred marijuana distribution at the clubs, and
consider an exemption for patients who face imminent harm and have no
effective legal alternative to marijuana.

The court said the government has offered nothing to contradict
``evidence that cannabis is the only effective treatment for a large
group of seriously ill individuals.''

The ruling, if it stands, would affect four other states in the 9th
Circuit -- Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Alaska -- that have laws
protecting medicinal marijuana users against state
prosecution.

The ruling has already been invoked by medicinal marijuana users,
including Peter McWilliams, an AIDS and cancer patient whose lawyers
said they were asking the appeals court Thursday to let him resume
smoking marijuana because his condition is deteriorating.

McWilliams, a writer and publisher, was arrested in Los Angeles in
July 1998 and charged by federal authorities with conspiring to grow
thousands of marijuana plants, which he said were intended to supply
medicinal marijuana clubs.