WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court handed medical marijuana users a major defeat Monday, ruling that a federal law classifying the drug as illegal has no exception for ill patients.
The 8-0 decision was a major disappointment to many sufferers of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other illnesses. They have said the drug helped enormously in fighting the devastating effects of their diseases.
Justice Stephen Breyer did not participate because his brother, a federal judge, initially presided over the case.
"In the case of the Controlled Substances Act, the statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception (outside the confines of a government-approved research project)," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the unanimous court.
Thomas noted the act states marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use."
At the local and state level in California, official tolerance of medical pot has been uneven. In some cases, prosecutors are facing a backlash from medicinal marijuana proponents.
Sonoma County is prosecuting Petaluma pot farmers who supplied a San Francisco medical cooperative. But San Francisco's top prosecutor plans to testify for the farmers.
In Oakland, a city-sponsored cooperative issues identification cards that are honored by medical marijuana organizations selling openly in other cities.
Patients using medicinal marijuana would be free from arrest if they obtain identity cards under a state Senate proposal that has law enforcement support.
Backers of the measure, SB 187, say the system would identify who is eligible to use pot for medical purposes under Proposition 215, which in 1996 legalized marijuana for patients with severe conditions.
The bill's author, state Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, said earlier this year that support could bring enough votes in the Legislature to get the bill approved. A similar bill died in the Assembly last year.
In Placer County, Steve and Michele Kubby were prosecuted after 265 pot plants were found in a raid of their home. But the jury balked, deadlocking 11-1 in favor of acquittal. Steve Kubby, the Libertarian candidate for governor in 1998, said he uses the drug in fighting cancer.
Steve Kubby was convicted on felony drug charges involving minute quantities of psilocybin and mescaline found during the Jan. 19, 1999, search of his home in Olympic Valley. A judge later reduced the felonies to misdemeanors.
After the Kubby trial, a group of medical marijuana advocates started a petition drive for a vote to recall Placer County District Attorney Bradford E. Fenocchio.
Fenocchio was the second district attorney to be served with recall papers by the American Medical Marijuana Association.
The first, Pamela Kamena, faces a May 22 vote in Marin County.
The case the Supreme Court decided Monday stems from a federal government request for an injunction against the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and five other marijuana distributors.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, brother of the justice, sided with the government. All the clubs except the Oakland group eventually closed down, and the Oakland club turned to registering potential marijuana recipients while it awaited a final ruling.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, ruling that medical necessity is a legal defense. Charles Breyer followed up by issuing strict guidelines for making that claim.
Voters in Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington also have approved ballot initiatives allowing the use of medical marijuana. In Hawaii, the legislature passed a similar law and the governor signed it last year.
The cooperative argued that a drug may not yet have achieved general acceptance as a medical treatment, but may still have medical benefits to a particular patient or class of patients.
Thomas said the argument cannot overcome the intent of Congress in approving the statute.
"It is clear from the text of the act that Congress has made a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception," Thomas wrote.
"Unwilling to view this omission as an accident, and unable in any event to override a legislative determination manifest in a statute, we reject the cooperative's argument."
Advocates of medical marijuana say the drug can ease side effects from chemotherapy, save nauseated AIDS patients from wasting away or even allow multiple sclerosis sufferers to rise from a wheelchair and walk.
There is no definitive science that the drug works, or works better than conventional, legal alternatives.
Several states are considering medical marijuana laws, and Congress may revisit the issue this year. A measure to counteract laws like California's died in the House last year.
Thomas was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The case is United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, 00-151.
Associated Press, Bee Staff
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