A WIN FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A federal appeals court in California this week struck an important blow
for medical marijuana, and for the First Amendment. It held that the
government cannot revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana to
their patients. The federal government should now abandon its misguided
policy of targeting doctors and sick people to fight marijuana use.

The ruling gives new life to the medical marijuana initiative, also known
as Proposition 215, which California voters passed in 1996. The law permits
seriously ill people to use marijuana on the advice of their physicians,
and it says that doctors may not be punished for recommending marijuana to
their patients. Shortly after it became law, the federal government
announced it would use its authority under the Controlled Substances Act to
revoke the prescription licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana to a
patient.

The appeals court rightly held that the policy strikes at "core First
Amendment interests of doctors and patients," by interfering with doctors'
ability to give honest and candid medical advice. If the government wants
to go after those who buy and sell marijuana, it should go after them
directly and not suppress protected speech as a back-door means of
enforcing drug laws.

The decision, in addition to vindicating the speech rights of doctors and
patients, should prompt federal and state governments to reconsider their
policies on medical marijuana. The war on drugs surely has better targets
than cancer patients and terminally ill people who use marijuana, on the
advice of doctors, to reduce their pain.