Pubdate: 11 March 1999
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
Copyright: 1999 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.phillynews.com/
Forum: http://interactive.phillynews.com/talk-show/
Author: Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

U.S. JUDGE WILL ALLOW POT LAWSUIT

Plaintiffs Seeking To Legalize The Drug For Medical Use Will Get Their
Day In Court

A federal judge yesterday refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to
legalize the medical use of marijuana, ruling that the plaintiffs
deserved the chance to prove the government had no reason to deny the
drug to seriously ill people.

"The answer must come from facts, not the abstractions and dogma
presently in the record," wrote U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz in a
25-page opinion and order.

Katz's ruling keeps alive a class-action lawsuit that many legal
experts assumed had no chance of success when it was filed in July.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Steel said lawyers had not had the
chance to review Katz's ruling and could not comment. "Our basic
position is that marijuana remains an illegal drug," Steel said.

Lawrence Elliott Hirsch, the Center City lawyer who filed the suit on
behalf of 165 people nationwide, praised the opinion as a "tremendous
job of analysis. . . . Whatever the ultimate outcome, the judge has
done an excellent job of framing the issues." Some medical researchers
have said marijuana seems to help in treating glaucoma and combating
the nausea caused by drugs used in treating cancer and AIDS. Although
a synthetic form of a key compound of marijuana has been marketed as
the prescription drug Marinol, the lawsuit contends it is not as
effective as smoking the herb itself.

In some ways, Katz handed victories to both sides. He denied Hirsch's
motion for a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, and granted the
government's motion to dismiss Hirsch's most novel claim -- that,
unlike the 18th Amendment's ill-fated ban on alcohol except for
medicinal use, Congress prohibited marijuana improperly in the
Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

Katz wrote that numerous federal courts have upheld the 1970
law.

But the judge said it was premature to dismiss the plaintiffs' claim
that they were being denied equal protection of the law.

Despite the prohibition of marijuana, the lawsuit contends, the
government in 1978 settled a federal lawsuit by implementing a limited
"compassionate use" program in which as many as 300 government-grown
marijuana cigarettes a month were provided to people found to have
serious medical conditions that benefited from marijuana use. About
half of the 14 people admitted into the program -- it was closed to
new participants in 1992 -- still receive the drug.
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