COURT BLOWS SMOKE ON MEDICINAL POT

Opponents of medicinal marijuana scored a victory Monday when the
Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can prosecute sick
people who grow and smoke pot for violating the federal drug laws.
The good news is that the 6-3 decision in Gonzales v. Raich didn't
strike down laws in Colorado and 10 other states that allow the
drug's use to ease severe pain.

What that means in practical terms is "an uneasy status quo," as
Daniel Abrahamson of the Drug Policy Alliance put it, in which a
growing number of states with or in the process of passing medicinal
pot laws will remain at loggerheads with the feds. Fortunately, local
law enforcement officials handle nearly all pot prosecutions and must
follow state laws that protect medical marijuana users.

If you share the views of the Bush administration, the court majority
did the nation a service by trying to prevent marijuana from leaking
into the broader population. The administration had argued that the
regulation of drugs, including marijuana, is the sole province of
Congress under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The high court agreed, saying Congress' failure to specifically
preclude medicinal marijuana from the 1970 Controlled Substances Act
did not exempt it from federal regulation. So it didn't matter if the
pot used by certified patients was grown entirely within the state in
which they live, or if the program is carefully limited and monitored
so as to minimize its impact on the illegal market.

Writing for the majority, Justice Paul Stevens acknowledged there
were "troubling facts" associated with the case launched by
chronic-pain sufferers in California, but said "limiting the activity
to marijuana possession and cultivation in accordance with state law
cannot serve to place" those activities "beyond congressional reach."
The Constitution's Supremacy Clause, "unambiguously provides that if
there is any conflict between federal and state law, federal law
shall prevail."

Sounds pretty final to us. We would have preferred the court endorse
the states' argument that Congress has no constitutional authority to
regulate activities that are both intra-state and non- economic, as
this one clearly is.

Even the sometimes goofy San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals recognized a case of reasonable federalism when it hears one.
Which is why in 2003 it upheld California's 1996 Compassionate Use
Act, a decision that the Supreme Court has now reversed.

Rather than defer to the will of voters as expressed through their
state legislatures or via ballot initiatives, Gonzales v. Raich
imposes the condescending view that states are incapable of acting in
the best interests of their residents. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
wrote in her stinging dissent, "The states' core police powers have
always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the
health, safety and welfare of their citizens."

No one should be proud of a federal government that interferes with
state initiatives to take care of sick people in legal and medically
prescribed ways. But if there is a silver lining in the majority's
decision, it is Stevens' wise suggestion that Congress could change
the law to allow medicinal marijuana use.

Congress in fact may get the chance as soon as next week. A measure
co-sponsored by Colorado Rep. Mark Udall and others is in the
pipeline, and for many chronic pain sufferers, including some 500
Coloradans on the state's marijuana registry, passage won't come soon enough.