PHYSICIANS WIN COURT VICTORY ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

California physicians who prescribe or even recommend the use of marijuana
for medical purposes can breathe a little easier, thanks to a ruling
Tuesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court concluded that the federal government cannot punish such
physicians by revoking their federal license to prescribe medications.

This is welcome news, said Dr. Marvin Trotter, with the Mendocino County
Public Health Department.

Doctors are licensed by the state to practice medicine, he explained, but
in order to prescribe controlled substances, they must have a license from
the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

"The federal government was saying they would revoke your license if you
prescribed or recommended marijuana to anybody. They argued the doctors
were aiding and abetting criminal activity by recommending marijuana.

"The appeals court is saying that doctors have a constitutional right to
speak with their patients about medical marijuana or any other medication."

The federal government has indicated a willingness to go after physicians
simply for telling their patients they might benefit from using marijuana.

"Not only would you lose your federal license to prescribe medicine,"
Trotter adds, "you could be excluded from the MediCal and Medicare
programs. You'd be out of business. Who could survive in Mendocino County
if you didn't see MediCal and Medicare patients?"

California physicians were placed in a somewhat precarious position after
the passage of Proposition 215, which Trotter calls "a vaguely worded
amendment that says people can have marijuana for medical purposes, if they
have the recommendation of a physician for certain diseases or for any
other diseases."

By adhering to their own medical judgment as well as the will of California
voters, physicians who recommend medical marijuana found themselves facing
the wrath of the federal government.

"Following the passage of Prop. 215, the Clinton administration said
doctors who prescribed medical marijuana would lose their licenses,"
Trotter recalls. The Bush administration, he adds, has continued that
policy, even though by opposing the will of California's voters, Bush is
contradicting his own conservative ideology.

"States' rights is a common argument," Trotter points out, "until it
interferes with the Bush administration's agenda."

Tuesday's ruling was the second straight victory for medical marijuana
advocates. The California Supreme Court had earlier ruled that patients
could not be prosecuted if they used medical marijuana on their doctors'
advice.

Even though he applauds both rulings, Trotter wants to make it clear he is
in no way advocating the use of marijuana in general.

"It's a very addictive drug and should be discouraged just like alcohol.
Alcohol and marijuana cause a lot of health problems," he notes.

Even so, Trotter adds, "no one should be telling a cancer patient that
there is any drug they shouldn't be allowed to use, if they so desire."

And treating such use as if it were a criminal matter, he says, makes no
sense at all especially when it is perfectly legal to treat patients with a
variety of other medications that can also have negative side effects.

"I have never understood why a doctor can give you a hundred Valium or
Vicodin and nobody would blink an eye, but if you recommend marijuana you
could lose your license and not be allowed participate in MediCal or
Medicare. That's insanity to me."

Noting that there are at least 20 different physicians in the county who
have prescribed marijuana for their patients, Trotter concludes Tuesday's
ruling "will make everybody breathe easier if it is not overturned by the
federal Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is a much more conservative court
than the 9th Court of Appeals."

The Bush administration is expected to turn to the Supreme Court in its
continuing effort to stop the use of medical marijuana.