HIGH COURT OUTLAWS MEDICAL POT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke
pot on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled today, concluding that
state medical marijuana laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the
drug.

The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had
successfully pushed 10 states, including California, to allow the drug's
use to treat various illnesses.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress
could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

The ruling could affect at least one pending marijuana cultivation case and
one woman's plans to open a medical marijuana dispensary in Calaveras County.

San Andreas resident Kim Cue has put her plans for a dispensary on hold for
several months. This latest ruling may mean she'll have to cancel them
altogether.

Although Cue could not be reached this morning for comment, Calaveras
County Sheriff Dennis Downum said he believes Cue has been waiting for the
court's decision to make a move.

Downum said Cue could be in jeopardy of arrest if she proceeds with opening
the business.

However, he stressed that he's not sure what the ruling's full implications
are yet.

"The way the news media is couching it is basically (that it) is throwing
out the marijuana laws," Downum said. "I don't know if that's in fact true.
We'll kind of be status quo for a week or 10 days, waiting to see what this
means for us."

Tuolumne County Sheriff's Lt. George Ruckman said the high court's decision
will not change the department's aggressive stance on marijuana law
enforcement.

However, the decision does not mean the department will go after medical
marijuana patients who grow plants within the legal limit -- an amount set
by individual counties.

"The Tuolumne County Sheriff's Department will continue to enforce
marijuana laws as we have been. And this new Supreme Court decision means
that it's fine for us to continue in this manner."

The closely watched Supreme Court case was an appeal by the Bush
administration in a case that it lost in late 2003. At issue was whether
the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled
Substances Act was constitutional.

Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state's
economic activity so long as it involves "interstate commerce" that crosses
state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown,
distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.

Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, "but perhaps even
more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which
the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in
the halls of Congress."

California's medical marijuana law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people
to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's
recommendation. Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon,
Vermont and Washington state have laws similar to California.

In those states, doctors generally can give written or oral recommendations
on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.

In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be
allowed to set their own rules.

"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define
criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their
citizens," said O'Connor, who was joined by other states' rights advocates.

The legal question presented a dilemma for the court's conservatives, who
have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years, invalidating federal
laws dealing with gun possession near schools and violence against women on
the grounds the activity was too local to justify federal intrusion.