MEDICAL MARIJUANA CASE BACK

SAN FRANCISCO - A group the Supreme Court barred from distributing
medical marijuana reopened its case Tuesday and asked the courts to
allow it to dole out cannabis for the sick.

The move comes eight months after the nation's highest court said the
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative could not defend its actions
against federal drug laws by declaring it was dispensing marijuana to
the medically needy.

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and
Washington allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke
marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution.

While the federal government has done little to enforce the high
court's ruling, it spread fear through the nation's medical marijuana
community. The ruling also left intact a court order prohibiting the
Oakland club from dispensing marijuana.

Lawyers expect the new case to reach the Supreme Court again, this
time on legal theories that the high court announced it was ducking
in its earlier ruling.

"The Supreme Court issued a very narrow ruling," said Robert Raich,
the cooperative's attorney. "We are taking the invitation to open up
other issues."

A hearing is set for next month in which the club's lawyers will ask
a federal judge to nullify an injunction barring the cooperative from
selling marijuana to the sick if they have a doctor's recommendation.

The high court's May decision addressed only the issue of a so-called
"medical necessity defense" being at odds with a 1970 federal law
that marijuana, like heroin and LSD, has no medical benefits and
cannot be dispensed or prescribed by doctors.

Justice Clarence Thomas noted that important constitutional questions
remained undecided, such as Congress' ability to interfere with
intrastate commerce, the right of states to experiment with their own
laws and whether Americans have a fundamental right to marijuana as
an avenue to be free of pain. Justice Thomas wrote that the court
would not decide those "underlying constitutional issues today."

Mark Quinlivan, the Justice Department's lead attorney on the case,
said Tuesday that the government had no comment on the new filing.
California was the first state to approve a medical marijuana law, in
1996. Despite the high court's ruling, many marijuana clubs
distribute marijuana to the sick and thousands of people grow and
smoke marijuana for medical reasons as the federal government looks
the other way.

What little enforcement action the government has taken has been in California.

In October, federal agents shut down a West Hollywood cannabis club
that doled out marijuana to the sick. Other recent federal actions in
California include the raid of a Ventura County garden operated by
patients and the seizure of medical records from a Northern
California doctor who is a prominent medical marijuana proponent.

The case is United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, 00-151.