Pubdate: Tue, 05 Sep 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/
Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX

SMOKED OUT

Supreme Court Bars Marijuana Distribution

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow last week to advocates of marijuana 
legalization. By a 7-to-1 margin, on an emergency request from the Clinton 
administration, the justices barred a cannabis "buyers club" in Oakland 
from dispensing marijuana.

The Oakland club claimed it was selling marijuana strictly for "medicinal" 
use, as permitted by California law under Proposition 215, approved by 
voters in 1996. Earlier, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San 
Francisco had sided with the buyers club, ruling that "medical necessity" 
is a "legally cognizable defense" to the charge of distributing drugs in 
violation of federal law.

Accordingly, declared Judge Charles Breyer on behalf of the Ninth Circuit, 
the Oakland cannabis buyers' cooperative was free to provide marijuana to 
people claiming serious medical conditions: cancer, AIDS or other such 
diseases.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's ruling out of hand, 
with only Justice John Paul Stevens dissenting and Justice Stephen Breyer 
recusing himself, because it was his jurist brother who ruled that the 
Oakland buyers club could sell marijuana.

The high court's ruling did not go so far as to ban distribution of 
marijuana to California patients altogether. Nor did it explicitly rule 
Proposition 215 unconstitutional. The justices will take up those issues in 
the fall.

Meanwhile, the debate rages on in California about marijuana use for 
supposedly medicinal purposes. Not helping the debate is the fact that most 
of the sponsors of Proposition 215, as well its financial supporters -- 
including the billionaire financier George Soros -- are advocates of drug 
legalization.

The Proposition 215 campaign was an all-too-clever gambit by the drug 
legalization lobby to get its nose under the public policy tent. If the 
voters approved marijuana use for medicinal purposes, they reasoned, maybe 
they might eventually approve marijuana use for nonmedicinal purposes. And 
so on.

But it is still worthwhile to determine, once and for all, whether the 
benefits of marijuana use for medicinal purposes outweigh the health 
drawbacks. (For instance, a middle-aged person's chances of having a heart 
attack increase 500 percent in the first hour after smoking marijuana, 
according to an American Medical Association report).

As it happens, UCSD has just announced a new cannabis study center, funded 
with $3 million from the Legislature (and millions of federal research 
dollars to come). The center will conduct not only basic research on 
medicinal marijuana, but also clinical trials.

It is noteworthy that the chief author of Proposition 215, San Francisco 
cannabis club founder Dennis Peron, is opposed to the UCSD center and its 
marijuana study. His protests suggest he is wary of what the science will 
reveal.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D