OFFICIALS SILENT ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA STRATEGY

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court said
it's illegal to sell or possess marijuana for medical use, the decision
appears to be having little effect in the eight states with medical
marijuana laws.

"I dispense a couple pounds a month," said Jim Green, operator of the
Market Street Club, where business has thrived even after the May 14
ruling. "All of my clients have a legitimate and compelling need."

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and
Washington allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke marijuana
for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution.

Those states have done little to change since the Supreme Court ruled
federal law prohibits people from dispensing marijuana to the ill. Some
states have even moved to expand marijuana laws despite the ruling.

State prosecutors say it's up to federal authorities, not them, to
enforce the court's decision.

"If the feds want to prosecute these people, they can," said Norm
Vroman, the district attorney in Northern California's Mendocino County,
where the sheriff issues medical marijuana licenses to residents with a
doctor's recommendation, or to people who grow the marijuana for them.

In Maine, "state prosecutors aren't too involved with enforcing the
federal law," said state attorney general spokesman Chuck Dow.

In response to the high court's decision, however, Maine lawmakers
shelved an effort to supply marijuana to the ill.

The Bush administration, which inherited the medical marijuana fight
from President Clinton, has taken no public action to enforce the ruling
and has been silent about its next move.

"There's generally no comment about what the government will do in the
future in any context," said Mark T. Quinlivan, the Justice Department's
lead attorney in the Supreme Court case.

Leslie Baker, head of the U.S. attorney's Portland, Ore.,
drug-enforcement unit, said last week that U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft's office has not given her with guidance on how to respond to
the ruling. Oregon allows "caregivers" to grow and dispense marijuana
for patients who have a doctor's recommendation.

Baker declined to say what federal authorities may do in the state.

Meanwhile, Nevada lawmakers, abiding by a voter referendum, on June 4
adopted a medical marijuana measure that Gov. Kenny Guinn said he would
sign.

In California, the nation's first state to approve medical marijuana in
1996, the Senate approved legislation June 6 legalizing marijuana
cooperatives for the sick.

Three days earlier, Colorado expanded its medical marijuana law,
complying with a state voter initiative that requires the state to
license medical marijuana users. That was despite the opposition of Gov.
Bill Owens and the state's attorney general, who urged federal
authorities to prosecute anybody who sells, distributes or grows medical
marijuana, even if they qualify for the state program.

At the Market Street Club in California, the marijuana goes to patients
such as Grant Magner, 49, of Novato, who says it reduces nausea and
headaches resulting from AIDS and gives him enough of an appetite to
eat.

"It gives me a slight feeling of wellness. I can not smoke marijuana,
and watch my body waste away," he said.

The absence of federal action has led to speculation about the Bush
administration's strategy.

"I think they are biding their time and are being very careful for which
organizations or persons they are going to target first after this U.S.
Supreme Court decision because that is what is going to get all of the
media attention," said Tim Lynch, the Cato Institute director of
criminal justice studies.

The Justice Department may take no action in hopes that the decision
will scare medical marijuana providers out of business, said Mark
Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the University of California at Los
Angeles.

The public silence also may reflect that the White House has more
important issues to handle.

"That is not what they're talking about in the Capitol and the corridors
of the White House," said presidential analyst Stephen Hess of the
Brookings Institution.

Any federal crackdown may open a Pandora's box of new legal questions,
said Robert Raich, the lawyer for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Oakland club could not defend its
actions against federal drug laws by declaring it was dispensing
marijuana to the medically needy.

But the justices said they addressed only the issue of a so-called
"medical necessity defense" being at odds with a 1970 federal law that
marijuana, like ****** and ***, has no medical benefits and cannot be
dispensed or prescribed by doctors.

Important constitutional questions remain, such as Congress' ability to
interfere with intrastate commerce, the right of states to experiment
with their own laws and whether Americans have a fundamental right to
marijuana as an avenue to be free of pain. Justice Thomas wrote that the
court would not decide those "underlying constitutional issues today."

The case is United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative,
00-151.


Newshawk: Be a Newshawk - http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 13 Jun 2001
Source: Daily Breeze (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Daily Breeze
Contact: letters@dailybreeze.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/881
Website: http://www.dailybreeze.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/ocbc.htm (Oakland Cannabis Court Case)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)