COURT RULES AGAINST POT FOR SICK PEOPLE

WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot
on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, 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 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 closely watched 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.