Pubdate: Tue, 15 May 2001
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2001 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/ocbc.htm (Oakland Cannabis Court Case)

COURT RULES AGAINST MEDICAL MARIJUANA

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal law does not 
allow a "medical necessity" exception to the prohibition on the 
distribution of marijuana.

The 8-0 decision dealt a setback, but not a definitive blow, to a movement 
that has succeeded in passing ballot initiatives permitting the medical use 
of marijuana in nine states.

The ruling did not overturn the state initiatives or address any question 
of state law.

Rather, the court ruled that marijuana's listing by Congress as a "Schedule 
I" drug under the Controlled Substances Act meant that it "has no currently 
accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."

In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the justices ruled that the 
federal appeals court in San Francisco misread federal law when it ruled 
last year that an Oakland marijuana cooperative could raise a medical 
necessity defense against the federal government's effort to shut the 
pharmacylike cooperative.

The cooperative distributes marijuana to patients whose doctors say they 
need the drug to alleviate the symptoms of cancer, AIDS and other illnesses.

The Justice Department brought the case as a request for an injunction 
rather than as a criminal prosecution, which would have required a jury trial.

Since nearly three-quarters of Oakland's voters supported California's 
Proposition 215, the 1996 voter initiative that enacted the Compassionate 
Use Act to permit the medical use of marijuana, the government would have 
faced a daunting challenge in finding a jury willing to convict someone for 
making marijuana available.

The question before the Supreme Court on Monday was a relatively narrow 
one: not the validity of the California initiative itself but of the 
federal courts' response to the government's request for an injunction.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, ordered the trial 
judge, Federal District Judge Charles Breyer, to tailor an injunction that 
would permit those with a serious medical condition that could be 
alleviated only by marijuana to have continued access to the drug.

The Clinton administration, asserting that the 9th Circuit had committed an 
error that threatened to undermine enforcement of drug laws, persuaded the 
Supreme Court to grant a stay of Breyer's ruling in August. Justice Stephen 
Breyer did not participate in any phase of the case because Judge Charles 
Breyer, who sits in San Francisco, is his younger brother.
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