WILL JUSTICES FAVOR COMPASSION OR CONTRADICTION?

The Bush administration could have deferred to state voters and
respected the judgment of doctors.

It could have looked the other way, out of compassion for those with
debilitating illnesses, instead of enforcing its zero-tolerance drug
policy.

Instead, it has persecuted ill Californians who rely on marijuana as a
lifeline, and picked a constitutional fight that landed in the lap of
the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

The administration argued that the clause of the Constitution
empowering Congress to lord over interstate commerce includes the
right to ban any use of marijuana. The federal Controlled Substances
Act trumps any state deviation from it.

Broad power under the commerce clause is critical for the federal
government to ensure workplace safety, ban hazardous products, punish
sexual and racial discrimination and create environmental regulations.
Over the past decade, the court has tended to come down on the side of
states' rights, rolling back the authority that previous Supreme Court
rulings liberally gave to Congress.

But to be consistent, the court should slap the feds' hand for
interfering with California's prerogative to pass medicinal marijuana
laws. It's a stretch to claim, as Bush's acting solicitor general did,
that the tiny bit of marijuana that plaintiff Diana Monson grew from
seeds to ease her chronic back pain will affect the nationwide illicit
market for the drug.

Blinded by an ideologically driven drug war, Congress and the
administration have refused to acknowledge the proven medical benefits
of marijuana. As a result, 11 states have crafted compassionate laws.
Proposition 215, which Californians passed eight years ago, permits
personal use of marijuana but only with a physician's
recommendation.

If the court does side with the Bush administration, California's
medicinal-marijuana law will technically remain on the books. But
patients like Monson will cower, worrying that federal drug agents
will seize their marijuana plants and bust them.

All of this because of the court's contradictions over federalism.