PATIENT LOSES COURT APPEAL FOR MEDICAL POT USE

The Court Reaffirms The Right Of The U.S. Government To Prosecute
Patients And Suppliers, Even In States Where Marijuana Is A Legal Medicine.

SACRAMENTO -- Medical marijuana patient Angel Raich's latest bid to
win protection from federal drug laws went down to defeat Wednesday
in U.S. appeals court despite her claim that cannabis is the only
medicine that keeps her alive.

The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the second big
legal loss in two years for Raich, 41, an Oakland mother of two who
suffers from more than a dozen chronic illnesses, including an
inoperable brain tumor.

"I feel like I'm a dead man walking because I'm the first person in
the country who has been told they do not have a right to life," a
sobbing Raich said after learning of the ruling. "I'm trying really
hard to remember the word 'courage' -- because courage is nothing
more than well-concealed fear."

In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed Raich, who has never been
charged with a crime but sought to make her plight a test case to win
protection for the nation's more than 100,000 medical-marijuana patients.

The high court reaffirmed the right of the U.S. government to wage
criminal prosecutions against patients and suppliers, even in
California and 10 other states where cannabis is a legal medicine.

Raich renewed her case before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit,
focusing her arguments on the "medical necessity" of her marijuana
use. Her physician says pot, which Raich inhales every two hours, is
the only drug that assuages her afflictions, which include a seizure
disorder and chronic pain.

In a 32-page opinion, Judge Harry Pregerson said Raich failed to
prove her case for an injunction that would bar U.S. drug agents from
lodging a criminal case against her.

But the judge expressed sympathy for Raich's medical plight and need
for marijuana, asserting that she probably would meet the
requirements to claim a medical necessity if she were ever criminally
prosecuted by the U.S. for her pot use.

Pregerson wrote that Raich was faced with a choice between "the
lesser of two evils." The judge said she probably met the legal
criteria for a medical necessity defense: establishing that her
illnesses put her in imminent harm, showing that pot managed her pain
and demonstrating that she had been unable to find legal medical
alternatives to cannabis, Pregerson wrote.

But Pregerson noted the difficulty of using medical necessity to
argue for a blanket shield against a future federal prosecution. The
possibility existed, he wrote, that Raich could make a miraculous
recovery or find a legal alternative to pot, undermining any
justification for such a shield. While noting a "clear trend" toward
state laws allowing medical marijuana, Pregerson said that those
rights have failed to gain "the traction" on a national scale to be
seen as a right deserving protection.

In a short companion opinion, Judge C. Arlen Beam concurred with the
overall ruling but took exception to Pregerson's consideration of
Raich's medical necessity arguments.

Beam said that without a criminal case filed against Raich, the court
was premature in addressing the necessity issue. Moreover, he said
both sides in the case conceded that there was no federal prosecution
pending or threatened against Raich or anyone else for possession or
use of medical marijuana.

Raich's medicinal need for cannabis has not been put to the test as
it would be under the scrutiny of a criminal prosecution, Beam wrote.
He also suggested that Raich has legal alternatives available, such
as Marinol. Marinol is an FDA-approved synthetic drug containing THC,
the most psychoactive of marijuana's scores of chemical constituents.

Raich and her attorneys said they planned to press forward with a
possible appeal to a larger 9th Circuit panel or new arguments to a
lower federal court.

Raich said she sees a need to change federal law prohibiting medical cannabis.

California approved its medical marijuana initiative in 1996, and 10
other states adopted similar laws, but cannabis remains prohibited by
the federal government for all uses except approved research studies.

"All I can say is that I am not going to stop using cannabis -- and I
need help from the American people," she said. "We need to tell
Congress this is wrong, and we need a law protecting medical cannabis
patients."

Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, an
advocacy group, said that although the ruling is a setback for Raich,
it is "at worst a very small bump in the road for medical marijuana."

He said research continues to accumulate in favor of marijuana's
benefits and support is growing in Congress. Meanwhile, lawmakers in
New Mexico -- with the backing of Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a
presidential hopeful -- appear poised to make that state the nation's
12th to legalize medical cannabis.

Mirken also said that the latest Raich ruling does nothing to
undercut the law in California -- and said mass federal arrests of
patients remain unlikely.