High Court Bars Pot Distribution for Medical Uses

The Supreme Court on Tuesday barred Californians from legally giving marijuana to people who are sick and in pain. The emergency order halts, at least for now, a San Francisco judge’s decree handed down last month that cleared the way for distributing cannabis to those for whom it is a “medical necessity.”

Nearly four years ago, California voters defied the federal government’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs and approved a measure that allowed seriously ill patients to obtain marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. Since then, private clubs, growers and some local jurisdictions have distributed the drug to people who demonstrated a medical need.

While Tuesday’s order may not immediately shut down these operations, it sends a strong signal that the Supreme Court is likely to formally invalidate California’s medical marijuana law, as well as similar measures in seven other states.

Under the court’s rules, the justices intervene in a pending case only when they are likely to take up the underlying issue and reverse the lower court ruling.

U.S. authorities maintain that federal anti-drug laws forbid the distribution of marijuana in all instances, and they say that states have no leeway to adopt other policies.

They sought a test case in Northern California three years ago, and the legal battle reached the high court for the first time this month.

Medical marijuana laws have proliferated in the West. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have passed measures similar to California’s, although Nevada must approve its constitutional amendment again for it to become law.

Medical marijuana advocates called the Supreme Court’s temporary order “a step backward for the cause.” Some said that they did not expect the government to shut down cannabis clubs now.

“This is about more than just marijuana,” said Dennis Peron, chief author of California’s Proposition 215. “It’s political. It’s about the Supreme Court interfering with states’ rights. Because states like California have a right to legalize marijuana.” Peron’s San Francisco medical marijuana club was closed by a federal court in 1998.

U.S. attorneys have not sought to enforce the hard-line policy by bringing criminal charges against people who freely distribute “medical” marijuana in California. Instead, they filed a civil suit seeking a federal court order that made it illegal for so-called cannabis clubs to operate.

At first they succeeded. In May 1998, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, a new Clinton appointee and the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, handed down the order sought by federal authorities. It barred the Oakland Cannabis Buyer’s Cooperative from “engaging in the manufacture or distribution of marijuana.”

Under Proposition 215 of 1996, the Compassionate Use Act, nonprofit groups, such as the Oakland cooperative, were authorized to distribute marijuana to patients who had authorization from doctors. Patients suffering from cancer or AIDS have found marijuana helpful in alleviating pain and nausea and stimulating appetite.

Appellate Court Grants Waiver

Lawyers for the Oakland group challenged the first ruling and won a reversal last year from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a key ruling last September, the appellate court said that the nation’s anti-drug laws can be waived in cases of “medical necessity.” This ruling cleared the way for the distribution of marijuana “to seriously ill individuals who need cannabis for medical purposes.”

When the case returned to Judge Breyer, he issued a new order on July 20 authorizing the Oakland cooperative to begin legal distribution of cannabis.

Wasting no time, the Justice Department first petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the 9th Circuit’s ruling. And two weeks ago, it asked the high court to issue an emergency order blocking Breyer’s decree.

Allowing the legal distribution of marijuana, even for medical purposes, will “promote disrespect and disregard” for federal drug laws, U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman said in his request.

On Tuesday, the justices, on a 7-1 vote, granted the order and blocked the Oakland cooperative from distributing cannabis.

As is typical, the court did not explain its order.

However, Justice John Paul Stevens, the lone dissenter, said the government had “failed to demonstrate that the denial of necessary medicine to seriously ill and dying patients will advance the public interest or . . . impair the orderly enforcement of federal criminal statutes.”

Justice Breyer, not surprisingly, recused himself.

Late next month, when the justices formally convene, they will take up the government’s appeal of the 9th Circuit ruling in the case (United States vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, 00-151).

The court likely will agree to hear oral arguments on the matter later in the term. However, Tuesday’s brief order suggests that the justices lean strongly in the government’s favor.

Activists insist that the Food and Drug Administration has wrongly characterized marijuana as a Schedule-1, or highly dangerous, drug.

“These justices are going to have to come to grips with the fact that this drug has been demonized and not properly scheduled. Aspirin is not on the list, and people use it for pain as well.”

Peron, who still cultivates marijuana at a Northern California farm for use by medical pot users, said he is not sure whether the court’s order would mean immediate closure of the state’s two dozen cannabis clubs.

“I don’t believe this will mean that federal marshals are going to swoop in and close these clubs,” he said. “That would mean depriving 5,000 people of much-needed medicine. A big raid isn’t going to serve them well.

“They’d only come off looking like Big Brother, like Waco all over again. But they might, and that scares me.”

Wayne Justman, director of the San Francisco Patients Resource Center, a medicinal marijuana club, said he believes that the court’s decision was a way for the justices to buy time before hearing detailed arguments on the matter.

Is California the Wrong Battleground?

“I’m not expecting either U.S. marshals or state drug enforcement agencies to march to each facility throughout the state, saying: ‘You must close,’ ” he said.

Justman said that voters knew what they were doing when they went to the polls in states such as California, Arizona, Washington and Maine and voted for humane use for the drug.

“The intention of government is to solve problems for people, not to create more,” he said.

Other medicinal marijuana users say that the federal government has chosen the wrong battleground in California to test its hard-line policies against the drug.

“If the federal government wants to see medicinal marijuana come to an end, they have to realize that the battle is not going to be won in California,” said Rob Battista, a member of a San Francisco cannabis club. “It’s got to go to another state where people are much less organized and where the locals don’t support the cause. But that’s not going to happen here.”

*

Savage reported from Washington and Glionna from San Francisco.

* MARIJUANA RESEARCH

A new University of California center will study the medicinal value of marijuana. A3