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By Andrew Quinn
SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 26 (Reuters) - America's long battle over medical marijuana heads to the US Supreme Court this week, with advocates and opponents ready to make the case that the cannabis plant is an exceptionally effective drug--for good or for ill.
For proponents like Angel McClary, a 35-year-old Oakland, California mother of two, marijuana is an essential part of the medical arsenal keeping her alive despite a brain tumor, seizures and partial paralysis that has confined her to a wheelchair.
"I became a cannabis patient out of sheer desperation," McClary said. "It got me up out of my wheelchair. I feel very grateful that I have this medication that sustains my life."
But opponents, led by the US Justice Department, argue that marijuana is a seductive and potentially dangerous narcotic that must remain banned under the Controlled Substances Act.
These two opposing viewpoints will be put before the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the high court hears a federal government's appeal of a ruling that would allow California marijuana clubs resume service for patients who can prove that cannabis is a medical necessity.
The Supreme Court hearing--and its decision, expected sometime in June--mark a watershed for the US medical marijuana movement, which has been mired in legal battles ever since California passed a first-in-the-nation state initiative in 1996 legalizing medicinal use of the drug.
The California initiative, known as Proposition 215, allows seriously ill patients to grow and use marijuana for pain relief as long as they have a doctor's recommendation.
Similar measures have been adopted in at least eight other states ranging from Hawaii to Maine.
The case before the Supreme Court involves the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, one of a number of local clubs that sprang up after the 1996 state law.
Federal officials, determined to enforce "zero-tolerance" toward banned drugs, moved to close the California clubs down, and in 1998 won an injunction from US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco prohibiting the Oakland group and other similar medicinal marijuana clubs from distributing the drug.
The clubs, saying they provide essential medicine to treat people suffering from everything from AIDS to glaucoma, went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled last year that Breyer should amend the injunction to allow the clubs to resume service for those who can prove that cannabis was a medical necessity.
Robert Raich, an attorney representing the Oakland cooperative, said he was hopeful that the Supreme Court would side with the patients. But he noted the court's justices had voted 7-1 last summer to stay Breyer's ruling pending its review of the case.
"I would say certainly we are facing an uphill battle here against a skeptical Supreme Court," Raich said.
Jeffrey Jones, 26, who co-founded the Oakland cooperative after his father died of cancer, said that even if the Supreme Court rules against the group the fight to provide medical marijuana to sick people would continue.
"Any time any issue goes before the high court it is make or break, but we're not going to give up if it's a negative (result). We are representing people with no alternative."
The Justice Department, saying it is fighting over "an issue of exceptional and continuing importance," is expected to argue that California and other state laws permitting medicinal use of marijuana are trumped by federal law banning marijuana distribution outside strictly controlled circumstances. It also contends this undermines enforcement of federal drug laws.
While the Oakland cooperative's lawyers said the federal case will have no effect on California's state law, a negative ruling could prevent efforts to arrange an above-ground method for distributing marijuana. This could force patients like McClary to turn to potentially dangerous street deals for the drug.
"I would really like for people to understand that this is not about cannabis, it is not about marijuana, it is not about pot. It is about patients, it is about ending suffering," McClary said.
"Without cannabis my life would be a death sentence, and death is not an option. I have two children, a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. I am choosing life."
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