COURT RAISES HOPES ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday told the federal government to exhale just a
little bit and not be so overzealous in its sanctions of doctors who talk
to their patients about the medicinal benefits of marijuana.

Without comment the high court let stand a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruling which held that doctors have a constitutional right to speak
candidly with their patients.

The ruling was a setback for the Bush administration which was following a
policy - initially set in the Clinton administration - to punish doctors
who recommend the medicinal use of marijuana to their patients or who even
discuss the drug's benefits by revoking the federal licenses they need to
write prescriptions.

The federal enforcement efforts also proposed excluding those doctors from
Medicare and Medicaid programs and criminal charges if they helped their
patients get marijuana.

The court's action, or rather inaction, doesn't open the door to widespread
medicinal prescription of marijuana since federal laws still make it
illegal to grow, sell or possess marijuana.

But at the very least it will allow the debate to continue on the medical
use of marijuana without fear of government sanction and may encourage more
states to join nine states which have authorized the medicinal use of
marijuana - Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Maine,
Colorado and Maryland.

Advocates of medical marijuana have long argued that it can be effective in
the treatment of glaucoma and arthritis and that it can also be beneficial
in the treatment of pain form some people who suffer from AIDS or nausea
that results from chemotherapy treatment for cancer. While doctors can
already prescribe THC, the active chemical ingredient in marijuana,
advocates say those pills are not as effective in delivering relief for
some people.

Those are compelling arguments and ones that rightly are the province of
medical research and the judgment of physicians without having to fear an
episode of reefer madness by an overzealous executive branch that cannot
distinguish between medical uses of a drug and illicit recreational uses.

Doctors routinely prescribe the use of narcotics and other drugs when they
are called for. If it has proven medical efficacy, marijuana should be an
option as well here in Wisconsin.