Editorial: Legal test for medical marijuana

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 9:11 a.m.

The federal government has never acknowledged what so many doctors and medical researchers years ago concluded -- that marijuana has healing and pain-relieving qualities. The federal law banning the drug under all circumstances was passed based on evidence that recreational use of marijuana leads to anti-social behavior and eventually to addiction. It has never been amended to allow the medical use of marijuana, despite studies showing how effective it can be for certain illnesses. It's been aggravating for patients and their doctors to know that an effective treatment exists but cannot be prescribed because of this federal law.

That's why Nevada is among the 11 states that circumvented federal intransigence on this issue and passed their own medical marijuana laws. The state laws allow residents to use and possess small amounts of marijuana if their doctor has prescribed it for them. Hovering over these laws, however, has always been the shadow of the federal government. Will the government move to have these laws stricken from the books? It's a question that has plagued states, which by now might have established formal marijuana distribution systems for patients if the fear of a federal crackdown was not so constant.

Well, the fear was justified. In August 2002 federal agents seized six marijuana plants from a patient in California, one of the states with a medical marijuana law on its books. The patient, suffering from a spine disease, turned to marijuana on the advice of her doctor. She had no option other than to grow her own supply of the drug. The legality of the federal seizure is now being weighed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments this week and is expected to rule on the case by next spring. The decision will likely determine whether state medical marijuana laws are legal.

When the decision is released, we hope to see that the justices bore in mind these two salient facts about medical marijuana: No one has been harmed by the states' laws. And thousands of sufferers, many of them terminally ill, have found relief.