WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rejected an appeal yesterday that jeopardized state medical marijuana laws that allow ill patients to smoke pot if they get a doctor's recommendation.
Justices turned down the Bush administration's request to consider whether the federal government can punish doctors for recommending or perhaps even talking about the benefits of the drug to sick patients. An appeals court said they cannot.
Nine states have laws legalizing marijuana for patients with physician recommendations or prescriptions: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, and 35 states have passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value. But federal law bans the use of pot under any circumstances.
The case gave the court an opportunity to review its second medical marijuana case in two years. The last one involved cannabis clubs.
This one presented a more difficult issue, pitting free-speech rights of doctors against government power to keep physicians from encouraging illegal drug use. A ruling for the administration would have made the state medical marijuana laws unusable.
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The Associated Press
