Supreme Court ruling undermines medical use of marijuana

Some physicians applaud while others bemoan the recent ruling, but all agree: More research is needed.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. June 4, 2001.

Washington -- There's no question that the U.S. Supreme Court's May 14 decision on certain legal questions related to the medical uses of marijuana represents a setback for the drug's proponents, who believe its use helps ease some of the distress of seriously ill people.

Although the ruling didn't strike down the nine state laws that allow medically needy patients to obtain the drug without fear of state prosecution, it did set up other obstacles.

For instance, patients in California will have to find other ways to obtain their marijuana than from the cannabis buyers' clubs shut down by the court's ruling.

The California Medical Assn., which supports its state law, was disappointed with the decision. "CMA's interest in this issue is rooted in the core belief that patients should not suffer unnecessarily when other options fail," said Frank E. Staggers, MD, president of CMA.

Physicians will have to continue to be very watchful when advising seriously ill patients of their treatment options that they don't run afoul of federal drug laws.

"We had hoped that, at least for a small subset of patients [for whom marijuana use is a medical necessity], physicians could feel freer with their discussion," said Alice P. Mead, a consulting attorney for CMA.

As it stands now, there is a gray area, she said. Physicians can't be sure when they have gone beyond the area of protected speech and into the realm of what is illegally aiding and abetting a patient to get marijuana.

"Some physicians understandably want to keep well clear of the gray area and the sanctions that could result," she said. Among the sanctions are loss of a license to prescribe controlled substances and exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. [...]