COURT: DON'T TREAD ON DOCTORS WHO RECOMMEND MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The Justice Department may not revoke doctors' licenses to dispense
medication or investigate doctors for recommending marijuana to sick
patients, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 2-year-old
court order prohibiting such federal action and is one of several cases
resulting from medical marijuana laws on the books in eight states.

Federal prosecutors argued that such tactics are necessary because doctors
are interfering with the drug war and circumventing the government's
judgment that marijuana has no medical benefits.

The San Francisco-based court disagreed.

"The government policy does ... strike at core First Amendment interests of
doctors and patients," Chief Judge Mary Schroeder wrote in the 3-0 opinion.
"An integral component of the practice of medicine is the communication
between doctor and a patient. Physicians must be able to speak frankly and
openly to patients."

Doctors who recommend marijuana in the eight states that have medical
marijuana laws "will make it easier to obtain marijuana in violation of
federal law," government attorney Michael Stern had said.

The ruling does, in fact, preserve state medical marijuana laws by
preventing the federal government from silencing doctors, said Graham Boyd,
an American Civil Liberties Union attorney.

"If a doctor can't recommend it, then no patient can use it," he said.
"This was the federal government's first line strategy, to shut down doctor
recommendations."

The case was brought by patients' rights groups and doctors including Neil
Flynn of the University of California, Davis, who said marijuana may be
beneficial for some patients but doctors have been fearful of recommending
it, even if it's in a patient's best interest.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup responded by prohibiting the Justice
Department from revoking Drug Enforcement Administration licenses to
dispense medication "merely because the doctor recommends medical marijuana
to a patient based on a sincere medical judgment." Alsup's order also
prevented federal agents "from initiating any investigation solely on that
ground."

The case was an outgrowth of Proposition 215, which California voters
approved in 1996. It allows patients to lawfully use marijuana with a
doctor's recommendation.

Following the measure's passage, the Clinton administration said doctors
who recommended marijuana would lose their federal licenses to prescribe
medicine, could be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid programs, and could
face criminal charges. The Bush administration continued Clinton's fight.

Other states with medical marijuana laws include Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii,
Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court said clubs that sell marijuana to the
sick with a doctor's recommendation are breaking federal drug laws.

Pot clubs continue to operate, including several in San Francisco, as local
authorities look the other way. But federal officials have raided many
clubs in California, the state where they are more prevalent.

One case challenging such raids is pending before the 9th Circuit. That
case, brought by an Oakland pot club, argues that the states have the right
to experiment with their own drug laws and that Americans have a
fundamental right to marijuana as an avenue to be free of pain.

The case decided Tuesday is Conant v. Walters, 00-17222.