Pubdate: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2004 The Seattle Times Company Contact: http://www.seattletimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409 Author: David Kravets, The Associated Press Note: Seattle Times staff reporter Julia Sommerfeld contributed to this report. Photo: AP: Angel Raich, who uses marijuana for medical purposes, and her husband, Rob, listen at a news conference yesterday. http://www.mapinc.org/images/angel.jpg Cited: Raich v. Ashcroft http://angeljustice.org/ Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Angel+Raich Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Robert+Killian Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) COURT TAKES CASE OVER STATE LAWS FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide whether the federal government can prosecute sick people who smoke marijuana on the advice of a doctor. The case involves the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say pot is the only drug that eases their chronic pain and other medical problems. The case also affects Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state, which have laws similar to California's allowing patients to grow, use or receive marijuana if they have a doctor's recommendation. Thirty-five states in all have passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value. The move was applauded by Dr. Robert Killian, a Seattle family physician who helped draft Washington's medical-marijuana law. "I trust the Supreme Court will uphold states' rights," he said. "This might further protect patients from federal law enforcement." The high court will take up the case sometime next winter. Doctors are already free to recommend marijuana, since the justices refused last fall to let the Justice Department punish physicians for discussing marijuana with their patients. The case the Supreme Court accepted began after several raids on California medical-marijuana clubs and individual growers over the past few years. Two ailing marijuana users, fearing their supplies might dry up, sued Attorney General John Ashcroft and won injunctions barring the Justice Department from prosecuting them or their suppliers. "I'm real excited and I'm real nervous and real afraid because my life is on the line here," said one of the plaintiffs, Angel Raich, 38, of Oakland, Calif., who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. She and her doctor say marijuana, which she uses every few hours, is the only thing that keeps her alive. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, ruled in the women's favor in December, saying the federal law outlawing marijuana does not apply to patients whose doctors have recommended the drug. Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson wrote that states are free to adopt medical-marijuana laws so long as the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes. He said using marijuana on a doctor's advice is "different in kind from drug trafficking." The Bush administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that state laws making exceptions for medical marijuana are trumped by federal drug laws. The federal Controlled Substances Act says marijuana, like heroin and LSD, has no medical benefits and cannot be dispensed or prescribed by doctors. Washington's law was passed in 1998 as Initiative 692. It gave people with certain conditions, including HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis, the right to possess and use marijuana with a doctor's approval. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake