COURT DENIES STATE LAWS ON MARIJUANA USE

WASHINGTON - Siding with federal authority over states' rights and
compassion for terminally ill patients, the Supreme Court said Monday that
the government can prosecute sick people who smoke marijuana as a
painkiller - even in states where such use is legal.

The U.S. Constitution makes the laws of the United States the "supreme law
of the land," and "if there is any conflict between federal and state law,
federal law shall prevail," Justice John Paul Stevens said for the court.
It is up to Congress, he said, to change the law.

The 6-3 ruling, which crossed the court's usual ideological lines, doesn't
invalidate laws in the states that have approved medical marijuana, but it
does deflate their power to protect users and doctors who prescribe the drug.

In 1996, California voters approved a measure that said "seriously ill
Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical
purposes" if they have a recommendation from a doctor. Alaska, Colorado,
Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have similar
laws.

The court, which noted that it was not passing judgment on the potential
medical benefits of marijuana, said the regulation of illicit drugs is a
matter of interstate commerce, reserved exclusively to the federal
government by the U.S. Constitution. That includes regulating local
activities, such as the growing and consumption of medical marijuana, that
could have an effect on interstate markets. So the federal Controlled
Substance Act of 1970, which classifies marijuana as a drug unacceptable
for any use, holds sway over any state provisions that say otherwise.

The decision means patients such as Diane Monson and Angel Raich, the
California women who challenged the federal law, risk federal prosecution
if they don't stop growing and smoking marijuana.

Raich said Monday her decision was a no-brainer.

"If I stop using cannabis, unfortunately, I would die," said Raich, who
suffers from wasting disease and joint pain.

"This is a case simply about the reach of federal power," said Randy
Barnett, a law professor at Boston University School of Law who argued the
case for Raich and Monson.

Raich and her lawyers said their next move is to Congress, where they hope
to persuade lawmakers to restrain the Justice Department from spending
money to prosecute medical-marijuana users in states that permit it.
They'll also go back to court to fully litigate a claim, undecided by the
high court, that they have a constitutional right to disregard the federal
drug law out of medical necessity.

The Justice Department did not say Monday how aggressive it would be in
pursuing prosecutions.

In his opinion for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens sympathized with
Raich and others who use marijuana, saying the case was complicated by
claims they would "suffer irreparable harm" if the court ruled against them.

But "well-settled law controls our answer," Stevens wrote.

The Controlled Substances Act "is a valid exercise of federal power, even
as applied to the troubling facts of this case."

Stevens' opinion was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia,
David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The high court, which has made a hallmark of paring back federal authority,
balked when two of the states' rights justices, Scalia and Kennedy,
embraced federal authority.

In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court had opened the door
to nearly unlimited government regulation.

"Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or
sold, that has never crossed state lines and that has had no demonstrable
effect on the national market for marijuana," Thomas wrote. "If Commerce
can regulate this ... then it can regulate virtually anything."

Chief Justice William Rehnquist also dissented, as did Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor. The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Associated
Press contributed to this report.