U.S. SUPREME COURT CONSIDERING STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS

Seven years after California voters opened the door to medical marijuana,
the U.S. Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether doctors should
be allowed to recommend the drug to patients.

Walters v. Conant, No. 03-40, one of the cases the Court will likely
consider at its private conference today, stems from Proposition 215, a
statewide ballot initiative approved by voters in 1996.

Proposition 215 gave patients the right to seek physician-sanctioned
marijuana, but the U.S. government objected, citing federal laws that
restrict the use of marijuana. In 1997, a group of physicians and patients
sued, trying to stop the government from revoking the prescription licenses
of doctors who recommend marijuana as treatment.

In August 1999, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District
of California entered a permanent injunction against government enforcement
of the rule against doctors. A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals, in a ruling written by Chief Judge Mary Schroeder, affirmed the
injunction in October 2002.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, is the named appellant in the case. In his petition on behalf of
Walters, Solicitor General Theodore Olson argues that the Ninth Circuit's
decision restricts the government's ability to investigate possible
violations of the law.

"[The decision] impairs the Executive's authority to enforce the law in an
area vital to the public health and safety," Olson wrote in the petition.
"The practice of medicine is subject to reasonable licensing and regulation,
even where that practice involves speech."

Dr. Marcus Conant, medical director of a private HIV/AIDS practice in San
Francisco, asserts that doctors have First Amendment rights to openly
discuss with their patients the risks and benefits of using marijuana to
relieve symptoms of diseases such as AIDS, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

"This case concerns the distribution of medical information, not
distribution of drugs," wrote Conant's lawyer, Graham Boyd, director of the
American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Policy Litigation Project, in a brief
opposing high court review. "Patients are free to follow or ignore the
advice, but the advice itself does not authorize or cause the distribution
of a drug."

Attorneys for Conant say review by the Supreme Court is unnecessary because
the district court's decision does not infringe on federal statues that
prohibit selling marijuana, and the decision creates no conflict among the
circuits.

Seven other states -- Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington -- have enacted similar medical marijuana laws by voter
initiative.