United Press International - Tuesday, 15 May 2001

Many Americans with serious illnesses, including cancer and AIDS, have been lucky enough to find a drug that can greatly ease their symptoms. But they also suffer some bad luck: It's marijuana.

For a long time, people needing to use pot as medicine have had to contend with the inconvenient fact that the drug is illegal. Many states have elected to allow the therapeutic use of cannabis. But the federal government has not. And when Californians approved a medical marijuana initiative, the U.S. Department of Justice refused to go along. It went to court to close down "cannabis dispensaries" set up to distribute pot to patients whose doctors recommended it.

Supporters of medical marijuana took heart when a federal appeals court ruled that federal law must be interpreted to allow a "medical necessity" exception for people with serious ailments that may respond only to cannabis. But Monday, the Supreme Court gave its response, which boiled down to: "What part of 'no' don't you understand?" In an opinion written by Clarence Thomas, the court said that since Congress didn't explicitly create such an exception, the courts must reject any medical defense.

The justices were unanimous (except for Stephen Breyer, who recused himself), and when that happens, they usually are on solid legal ground. Here, they reached the right conclusion: Courts should not be in the business of revising laws merely because their enforcement may have regrettable consequences. Congress, acting as the agent of the American people, is perfectly capable of considering the evidence on the medical value of marijuana and deciding whether it warrants special treatment.

In fact, Congress has done exactly that and chosen not to permit therapeutic use of the drug. That this decision is unwise doesn't mean that our elected legislators didn't have every right to make it.

Unwise, though, is an understatement. One of the ailments for which marijuana has been used is AIDS wasting syndrome, a severe loss of appetite that causes emaciation. A 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that marijuana has proven its effectiveness in treating this condition, as well as the nausea that often goes with cancer chemotherapy. The report found no evidence that the medical use of pot would contribute to drug abuse. Given all this, denying marijuana to desperately ill people is pointlessly cruel.

But anyone who favors a more humane approach will have to hope that popular sentiment will force a change in federal law. Voters in seven states, from Arizona to Maine, have voted to allow cannabis therapy, suggesting that the public can endorse marijuana for medical use without legalizing it for recreational use. It's time Congress did the same.

Denver Post

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court wasted few words yesterday in disposing of the medical marijuana issue by invalidating statutes in eight states, including Colorado.

The court, in a less-than-10-page decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said states can't overrule the provisions of the federal Controlled Substances Act that plainly makes it a criminal act to "manufacture, distribute or dispense" marijuana. The law, the court said, does not include any exceptions, except for research, an exception that is not involved in this case.

Voters in eight states had approved ballot initiatives (Colorado just last year) allowing for medical use of marijuana. There were some variations in the laws, but the court's decision yesterday left no room for any of the provisions to survive. The court essentially said that, absent a specific medical-marijuana exemption in the federal law, one doesn't exist and cannot be invented.

The case before the court originated in California, where proponents of the law had claimed marijuana use was a medical necessity for a certain class of patients. The court ruled that this issue had been settled by Congress when it found there was no currently accepted medical use for the drug. The court restated a principle that appears in its prior decisions, namely that creating an exemption in the law is a job for Congress, not the courts.

Health officials in Colorado, in common with other states, had struggled with the touchy issue of how to write regulations that would allow certain patients to get the drug without encouraging expanded illegal drug traffic. Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar has said he will shortly advise state agencies about the impact of the ruling, which presumably would end the writing of regulations.

Proponents of medical marijuana now have one main remaining option. They can petition Congress to modify the Controlled Substances Act in a way that would legalize some marijuana use nationally. Had that been an inviting option, however, medical marijuana backers would have used it before rather than go to the trouble of passing initiatives in individual states.

Proponents may find a ray of light in the fact that last year Congress killed a bill that would have banned laws like that in California. That ray of light is faint, to say the least, because the issue last year was very narrow and the vote in no way suggests Congress is now willing to write a medical marijuana exemption into federal law.

Miami Herald

The U.S. Supreme Court decision yesterday striking down so-called medical-marijuana laws -- although correct on the issue -- also seemed to set unnecessary limits on how far states could go in setting policies that ran outside of national norms.

Eight justices agreed to uphold a federal law banning the sale of marijuana, except for government research. The justices split 5-3 over the breadth of their decision. (Justice Stephen Breyer abstained. His brother, a California federal judge, had heard the case.)

The decision could pose a threat to any state experimentation that conflicts with prevailing attitudes. One issue now to watch is the congressional debate over Oregon's voter-approved law permiting physicians to aid terminally ill patients to commit suicide; another could be state laws allowing gay unions.

On the marijuana issue, both factions on the court rightly agreed that the federal law permits no medical-necessity exceptions for distributing the drug. Justice John Paul Stevens, however, called the decision too broad, writing that while distributors could not claim medical necessity, others -- such as the ill -- might. His opinion, supported by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, also chided the majority, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, for not showing "respect" for states.

Justice Thomas's opinion said that the court didn't analyze the issue's relation to Congress's power to regulate under the interstate commerce clause because those questions weren't presented to the lower courts. Yet his faction of the court often uses the commerce clause to rein the power of Congress to dictate to states.

Eight other states permit the distribution of marijuana for medical use. In Florida, the ruling may drive a stake through the petition drive to do so here.

Medical marijuana is a heated issue: Some claim it can alleviate glaucoma and several other conditions, while some law enforcement officials say that any legalization will lead to abuse by the healthy.

The growing misuse of OxyContin, a drug important to people with intractable pain, seems to prove that point. But the larger issue should be control, not prohibition, of these substances to keep them available to benefit health. Use of drugs should be a medical decision, and control, a political one. Yet Congress, which now alone has the ability to permit state experimentation, is highly unlikely to do so.

Seattle Times

Washington law, passed by popular vote in 1998 with a 59 percent majority, allows the use of marijuana for treatment of cancer, Crohn's disease, HIV, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, spasticity disorders, glaucoma and intractable pain.

Federal law, passed in 1970, declares that marijuana "has no currently accepted medical use at all." So said the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday in a ruling that may be grounded in the law but makes bad policy for the 21st century.

Many people infected with HIV have to take handfuls of pills every day. Their body's natural defense is to vomit. By suppressing this reaction, marijuana allows patients to keep their medicine down and stay alive. To them, it is a medical necessity. But the high court said yesterday that medical necessity doesn't matter, because the federal law does not allow for it.

The federal law should be changed. Marijuana, classified by Congress as a Schedule One drug with no medical uses, should be reclassified to allow it to be prescribed by a doctor, grown under federal supervision and dispensed by prescription.

Even without that change, the more permissive laws of nine states (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Maine) make a difference. Federal law targets manufacture and sale, not simple possession. Federal agents typically target big traffickers.

Washington law allows individuals with a doctor's recommendation to have a 60-day supply. Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, has sponsored a bill that would allow the state to define what a 60-day supply is. The bill, which has been blocked by some House Republicans, should be passed.

Local practice is not to prosecute medicinal users. "Nobody wants to have a terminally ill defendant before a jury," says Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for the King County prosecutor.

That is good sense. Logically, it makes far less sense to allow people to use a product but not to buy or sell it. But it is better to be illogical than inhumane.

San Francisco Chronicle

The saddest consequence of yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlaws distributing marijuana as a "medical necessity" is that many sick people will suffer unnecessarily because they don't have an illegal drug connection.

Recreational potheads will have no problem scoring lids, but law-abiding patients will have to grow it themselves or purchase it from a criminal source.

For many patients that will mean doing without an effective palliative they say works to ease the agonies of a host of illnesses.

The high court's 8-to-0 decision supported the federal Controlled Substances Act that states marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use" and banned its distribution by so-called "cannabis clubs."

It was a major setback for the medical marijuana movement, and more specifically, for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, which had argued pot is a "medical necessity" for many patients.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said "medical necessity is not a defense to manufacturing and distributing marijuana," and that pot has "no currently accepted medical use at all."

It is a shortsighted ruling that ignores significant anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness.

California was the first state in the union to legalize pot as medicine with the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 that permitted patients to use, grow and possess pot if it was recommended by a doctor.

Eight other states have passed similar laws, and they have all been at loggerheads with federal law that lists marijuana with cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and other dangerous drugs.

Medical pot advocates insisted that the high court's ruling does not affect the validity of state laws that allow patients to grow and use small amounts of marijuana as medicine.

However, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer says "federal law trumps state enactments," but he is reviewing the decision. "It is unfortunate that the court was unable to respect California's historic role as a 'laboratory' for good public policy and a leader in the effort to help sick and dying residents who have no hope for relief other than through medical marijuana," he said.

For years, advocates of marijuana as medicine have argued that pot works for an array of medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS, migraine headaches, epilepsy, asthma and chronic pain.

It would take an act of Congress to restore the medical marijuana option. Congress should do so as a matter of humanity and medical necessity in many cases.

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