MARIJUANA HEARING IS MONDAY

Justices to Rule If States Can Allow Medical Use of Federally Banned Drugs

OAKLAND, Calif. - Traditional drugs have done little to help 39-year-old
Angel Raich. Beset by a nightmarish list of ailments that includes tumors
in her brain and uterus, seizures, spasms and nausea, she has been able to
find comfort only in the marijuana that is recommended by her doctor. It
eases her pain, allows her to rise out of a wheelchair and promotes an
appetite that prevents her from wasting away. Her Berkeley physician, Frank
Lucido, said marijuana "is the only drug of almost three dozen we have
tried that works."

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will
determine whether Raich and similar patients in California and 10 other
states can continue to use marijuana for medical purposes.

At issue is whether states have the right to adopt laws allowing the use of
drugs the federal government has banned or whether federal drug agents can
arrest individuals who are abiding by those state laws.

California passed the nation's first so-called medical marijuana law in
1996, allowing patients to smoke and grow marijuana with a doctor's
recommendation. The Bush administration maintains those laws violate
federal drug rules and asserts that marijuana has no medical value.

"I really hope and pray the justices allow me to live," said Raich as she
crammed a blend of a marijuana variety known as "Haze X" into a contraption
that vaporized it inside large balloons. She said the outcome of the case
will determine whether her husband will have a wife, her children a mother.

The case will address questions left unresolved from the first time the
high court considered the legality of medical marijuana. In 2001, the
justices ruled against clubs that distributed medical marijuana, saying
they cannot do so based on the "medical necessity" of the patient.

The ruling forced Raich's Oakland supplier to close and other cannabis
clubs to operate in the shadows. The decision did not address whether the
government can block states from adopting their own medical marijuana laws.
Nevertheless, the federal government took the offensive after the ruling,
often over the objections of local officials.

It began seizing individuals' medical marijuana and raiding their suppliers.

Nowhere was that effort more conspicuous than in the San Francisco Bay area.

Raich and Diane Monson, the other plaintiff in the case, sued Attorney
General John Ashcroft because they feared supplies of medical marijuana
might dry up.

Last December, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
said federal laws criminalizing marijuana do not apply to patients whose
doctors have recommended the drug. The appeals court said states were free
to adopt medical marijuana laws as long as the marijuana was not sold,
transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes.

The other states with such laws are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii,
Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. The Supreme Court
justices agreed in June to hear the Raich-Monson case. A ruling is expected
to decide the states' rights issue the court left unanswered in 2001.