AMA steps into legal marijuana dispute
Says U.S. should settle with Bay Area doctors

Eric Brazil
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

The nation's medical establishment urged settlement Monday of a Bay
Area physicians' lawsuit challenging the Clinton administration's
hardline policy against medical marijuana.

In a letter to the Justice Department, American Medical Association
President Dr. Daniel H. Johnson Jr. and California Medical Association
President Dr. Jack E. McCleary offered a threepoint basis for
settlement. The suit seeks to upend a policy which would prevent doctors
from recommending marijuana to patients.

The federal policy was declared after California voterapproved
Proposition 215 and a similar measure in Arizona effectively
legalized the medicinal use of marijuana.

Further litigation, Johnson and McCleary wrote, "will serve no
productive purpose. Indeed, prolonged litigation may actually disserve the
interests of patients and their physicians by creating an intolerable
period of uncertainty."

On Dec. 30, U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey enunciated a policy
under which physicians recommending or prescribing marijuana could lose
their federal authority to write drug prescriptions. They could also be
excluded from Medicare and Medicaid programs and face criminal charges,
McCaffrey said.

A group of prominent Bay Area physicians filed a lawsuit to
enjoin the government from enforcing that policy. The government's motion
to dismiss the complaint is scheduled to be heard by U.S. District Court
Judge Fern Smith next month.

The Justice Department has rejected previous settlement requests
by attorneys for the plaintiffs. Arthur Goldberg, the Justice
Department attorney who is supervising the handling of the case, declined
to comment on the letter by Johnson and McCleary.

Under guidelines proposed by the CMA, which would be the basis
for the settlement, physicians would be able to:

*State the possible balance of risks and benefits of marijuana use
in a patient's particular case;

*Document the discussion in the patient's medical record;

*Testify about that discussion in court.

"I don't think organized medicine can make it any clearer. The
government has overstepped its bounds in this case," said Dr. Marcus
Conant of San Francisco, one of the nation's most prominent AIDS
physicians and lead plaintiff in the complaint against the government.
"It's not only a violation of the First Amendment, it also seriously
impairs the physicianpatient relationship," Conant said. "For the AMA,
this is a very, very strong position to take."

Graham Boyd, attorney for the physicians who have sued the
government, in a letter to the Justice Department, renewed their
settlement offer. "The (CMA) guidelines address our fundamental concern
that a physician be able to provide an honest, individualized opinion
about the medical advisability of marijuana," he wrote.