CASE SEEKING RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE MEDICAL MARIJUANA RESURFACES

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.