HIGH COURT TO EXAMINE MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

DENVER - Robert Melamede's guidelines for better living go something
like this: Eat right, exercise and smoke a little marijuana.

The biology department chairman at the University of Colorado at
Colorado Springs is among the state's 625 registered legal users of
marijuana for medical reasons. He says it eases the pain of his spinal
arthritis.

Melamede can't imagine living without it. However, his fate and that
of legal users in 10 other states could be affected by a U.S. Supreme
Court case in California that will determine whether a federal ban on
the drug trumps state laws allowing medical marijuana.

The decision - expected in the next month - may redefine the limits of
congressional power under the commerce clause of the
Constitution.

Either way, the decision is expected to revive the debate about the
medicinal legitimacy of marijuana use and the social implications of
legalizing what law enforcement officials call a "gateway" drug, which
may lead to harder drugs.

In Colorado, federal law enforcement authorities said the decision
would determine whether they could prosecute medical marijuana producers.

Bill Weinman, a federal Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor
based in Denver, called medical marijuana a ploy by those who want to
legalize the drug. He said his agency does not target sick and dying
people but carefully evaluates whether growers are trafficking in the
drug.

"This whole medical marijuana thing is a scam," Weinman said. "You
don't smoke your medicine."

The question before the court is whether the Controlled Substances
Act, a comprehensive 1970 federal law regulating a broad range of
drugs including marijuana, exceeds Congress' power to regulate commerce.

Government lawyers argue that homegrown medical marijuana would affect
a $10.5 billion illicit market.

Erik Neusch, a lawyer who wrote a law journal article on the
constitutional issues raised by medical marijuana laws, said that
during the past decade, the Supreme Court has rendered several
decisions that have deferred to states' rights.

"What will be interesting is to see whether the Supreme Court
continues on this path of broadening states' rights," he said.

"If they were internally consistent, they would strike down the
federal government's attempts to prosecute medical marijuana use in
the states," Neusch said. "But I don't think that's going to happen."

If the decision favors states' rights, more states probably will pass
measures allowing medical marijuana use, said K.K. DuVivier, an
associate law professor at the University of Denver.

"There has been [a movement] since the 1980s," she said. "People are
trying to get around" federal law.

However, she predicted that if the decision were to favor federal
enforcement of a marijuana ban, enforcement would vary locally.

"If local agencies say they're not going to put any funding into it
and they make it a lower priority, the federal government will come in
occasionally to make raids, but they won't have the presence to really
enforce it," DuVivier said.

In 2000, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 20,
legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana for those who get a doctor's
approval and register with the state. In addition to Colorado, states
with some form of legalized marijuana use include Alaska, Arizona,
California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Melamede suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a painful, progressive,
rheumatic disease that mainly affects the spine but can also affect
other joints, tendons and ligaments.

Melamede is hopeful that a favorable decision by the Supreme Court
would encourage doctors to be more liberal about prescribing marijuana.