SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CASE ON MEDICAL POT

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether sick
people who smoke pot on a doctor's orders are subject to a federal ban on
marijuana.

The court agreed to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost
last year involving two California women who say marijuana is the only drug
that helps alleviate their chronic pain and other medical problems.

The high court will hear the case sometime next winter. It was among eight
new cases the court added to its calendar for the coming term. The current
term is expected to end this week.

The marijuana case came to the Supreme Court after the San Francisco-based
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that a federal law
outlawing marijuana does not apply to California patients whose doctors
have prescribed the drug.

In its 2-1 decision, the appeals court said prosecuting medical marijuana
users under the federal Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional if
the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for
non-medicinal purposes.

Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the appeals court majority that smoking pot
on the advice of a doctor is "different in kind from drug trafficking." The
court added that "this limited use is clearly distinct from the broader
illicit drug market."

In its appeal to the justices, the government argued that state laws making
exceptions for "medical marijuana" are trumped by federal drug laws.

Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act to control "all
manufacturing, possession and distribution of any" drug it lists, Bush
administration Supreme Court lawyer Theodore Olson wrote.

"That goal cannot be achieved if the intrastate manufacturing, possession
and distribution of a drug may occur without any federal regulation."

California's 1996 medical marijuana law allows people to grow, smoke or
obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Alaska,
Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state have
laws similar to California. Thirty-five states have passed legislation
recognizing marijuana's medicinal value.

In states with medical marijuana laws, doctors can give written or oral
recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious
illnesses.

The case concerned two seriously ill California women, Angel Raich and
Diane Monson. The two had sued Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a
court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of
federal prosecution.

Raich, a 38-year-old Oakland woman suffering from ailments including
scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain, smokes
marijuana every few hours. She said she was partly paralyzed until she
started smoking pot.

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that members-only clubs that had formed to
distribute medical marijuana could not claim their activity was protected
by "medical necessity," even if patients have a doctor's recommendation to
use the drug.

Last fall, however, the high court refused to hear a separate Bush
administration request to consider whether the federal government can
punish doctors for recommending the drug to sick patients.