OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Traditional drugs have done little to help Angel
Raich. Beset by a nightmarish list of ailments that includes tumors in her
brain and uterus, seizures, spasms and nausea, Ms. Raich, 39, says she has
been able to find comfort only in marijuana, which was 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, she said. Her doctor, Frank
Lucido, said marijuana was "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 Ms. Raich; another plaintiff, Diana Monson; and similar
patients in California and 10 other states can continue to use marijuana
for medical purposes.

At issue is whether Congress has the constitutional authority to enforce
federal drug laws in states that allow the use of drugs the federal
government has banned.

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, which asserts that marijuana has
no medical value, maintains that the California act violates federal drug law.

"I really hope and pray the justices allow me to live," Ms. Raich said as
she crammed a blend of a marijuana variety known as Haze X into a machine
that vaporized it inside large balloons. She then inhales the vapor.

The case will address questions left unresolved from the first time the
court considered the legality of medical marijuana.

In 2001, the justices ruled against clubs that distributed medical
marijuana, saying they could not claim "medical necessity" of the patient
as a defense against federal law enforcement. The ruling led Ms. Raich's
supplier in Oakland to close and other cannabis clubs to operate in the
shadows.

The decision did not address whether the government could block states from
adopting their own medical marijuana laws.

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, where the nation's medical
marijuana movement was founded.

Ms. Raich and Ms. Monson sued Attorney General John Ashcroft. After a
two-year legal battle, they won injunctions barring the Justice Department
from prosecuting them or their suppliers.

"This has been a nightmare," said Ms. Monson, a 47-year-old accountant from
Oroville whose backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized in 2002.
"I've never sued anyone in my life, never mind the attorney general of the
United States of America. For crying out loud, here in California we've
voted to allow medical marijuana."

She regularly uses marijuana on a doctor's recommendation to alleviate back
problems. She says it also helps cope with the recent death of her husband,
who had pancreatic cancer.

Last December, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in
San Francisco, ruled in the plaintiffs' favor. It said that controlling the
noncommercial cultivation and use of marijuana exceeded the jurisdiction of
Congress.

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 court ruled that marijuana for medicinal purposes was "different in
kind from drug trafficking" and outside the scope of federal oversight.

The same court last year said doctors were free to recommend marijuana to
their patients. The government appealed, but the Supreme Court declined to
hear the case.

In June, however, the justices agreed to hear the Raich-Monson case. A
ruling is expected to decide the states' rights issue the court left
unanswered in 2001.

Paul Clement, the acting solicitor general, told the justices in briefs
that the government, backed by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, had the
power to regulate the "manufacture, distribution and possession of any
controlled substance," even if such activity takes place entirely within
one state.

Even some states without medical marijuana laws have criticized the federal
government's position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court
they supported "their neighbors' prerogative in our federalist system to
serve as laboratories for experimentation."

A number of medical groups, doctors and marijuana supporters also wrote the
court, saying marijuana benefited sick patients.

But Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, an
antidrug group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, said in
a statement: "We cannot allow individual states to undermine federal
antidrug laws. Medical questions should be decided by the F.D.A. - in
consultation with the medical profession - not by pro-drug activists
preying on public ignorance."

The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.