MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN COURT

Whether marijuana can be used for medicinal purposes in California and
several other Western states is about to be decided by a federal appeals
court in San Francisco. The court is to rule on a challenge by doctors to a
federal policy prohibiting them from recommending medical marijuana. The
federal campaign, which is designed to block a California state referendum
on the issue, is mean-spirited and unconstitutional. The appeals court
should not delay in calling an end to it.

In 1996 California's voters adopted Proposition 215, also known as the
Medical Marijuana Initiative, which holds that the state's criminal laws
against marijuana do not apply to seriously ill patients who use the drug
on the advice of their physicians. Shortly after it passed, the federal
government announced that, as part of the war on drugs, it would use its
authority under the Controlled Substances Act to revoke a doctor's license
to prescribe drugs if he or she recommended marijuana to a patient.

A group of doctors and patients sued, arguing that the federal policy
intrudes on the doctor-patient relationship and prevents them from honestly
rendering and receiving medical advice. The lower court that heard the case
took a dim view of the federal government's policy, and enjoined it from
using its rules to take away the licensing power of doctors who recommend
medical marijuana to their patients.

Medical marijuana can be a legitimate treatment for cancer patients who are
nauseated by chemotherapy, AIDS patients who lose their appetites and other
seriously ill people. In cases where a patient is considering stopping
treatment because of the agony, or cannot keep food down, medical marijuana
can be life-saving. The federal government's attempt to block its use flies
in the face of mainstream medical opinion. One Harvard study of 2,000
oncologists found that 44 percent had recommended marijuana to patients
undergoing chemotherapy.

The federal policy also clashes with the free-speech protections of the
First Amendment. The federal government wants to punish physicians merely
for advising a patient about the benefits of marijuana. That restriction
infringes directly on the First Amendment right of doctors to speak freely
and, no less important, the right of patients to receive the best possible
medical information.

The court's ruling will affect not only California but six other Western
states in the same judicial circuit that have medical marijuana laws. It is
being closely watched by doctors and patients in those states, and
nationwide, since this ruling is likely to be influential on other courts
that take up the question. The California appeals court judges have an
opportunity to strike an important blow for free speech and honesty in
medicine by striking down the medical marijuana gag rule.