Pubdate: Tue, 28 Nov 2000
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Section: Nation/World page 2
Copyright: 2000, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm
Author: Laurie Asseo of the Associated Press

SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court entered the debate over medical marijuana 
Monday, agreeing to decide whether the drug can be provided to patients out 
of "medical necessity" even though federal law makes its distribution a crime.

The justices said they will hear the Clinton administration's effort to bar 
a California group from providing the drug to seriously ill patients for 
pain and nausea relief.

A lower court decision allowing the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative to 
distribute the drug "threatens the government's ability to enforce the 
federal drug laws," government lawyers said.

But the California group says that for some patients, marijuana is "the 
only medicine that has proven effective in relieving their conditions or 
symptoms."

The group's lawyer, Annette P. Carnegie, said Monday the federal Controlled 
Substances Act does not prohibit the distribution of marijuana for medical 
reasons.

"Those choices, we believe, are best made by physicians and not by the 
government," she said. Marijuana has been effective in relieving nausea in 
cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, limiting weight loss in 
HIV-positive patients and in reducing pain, she said.

Eight states in addition to California have medical-marijuana laws in place 
or approved by voters: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington, 
Nevada and Colorado. Residents of Washington, D.C., voted in 1998 to allow 
medical marijuana, but Congress blocked the measure.

Justice Department lawyers said Congress has decided that marijuana has "no 
currently accepted medical use."

In August, the Supreme Court barred the California group from distributing 
marijuana while the government pursued its appeal.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer didn't participate in the case. His brother, a 
federal judge in California, previously barred marijuana distribution only 
to have his decision reversed by an appeals court.

California's law authorizes the possession and use of marijuana for medical 
purposes upon a doctor's recommendation.
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