SACRAMENTO — Even for the trend-setting California ballot, this was a bold proposition--to take marijuana, a long-demonized drug, and make it medicine. Supporters said Proposition 215 would ease the ills of thousands. Foes predicted chaos for cops, big problems for prosecutors.
Both sides, in the end, were right.
The landmark 1996 ballot measure, which spawned similar laws in eight states, has left a tangled legacy of uneven enforcement and continual tug-of-wars over who qualifies for medicinal weed and how it should be dispensed.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court wades into the thick of it, hearing oral arguments in a test case of the controversial law.
At issue is distribution of medical pot by the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and other centers that sprouted in California after 56% of the voters passed Proposition 215. More broadly, the dispute pits a state's right to legalize marijuana as medicine against federal rules that strictly prohibit pot.
Medical marijuana boosters hope to convince the high court that patients facing dire illnesses such as AIDS and cancer might qualify to use pot out of "medical necessity," an exception, they argue, that trumps the federal government's zero-tolerance stance on illegal drugs.
Federal prosecutors counter that the nation's narcotics laws leave no such leeway. The proliferating medical marijuana statutes in states such as California, they argue, threaten to undermine Congress, unravel the nation's war on illegal narcotics trafficking and turn cannabis cooperatives into dangerously unregulated pharmacies for pot.
The high court could decide the case as early as summer, and its opinion might doom the so-called buyers clubs. Backers of medical pot say a decision favoring the federal government would severely undermine the law, closing down an important supply outlet for patients.
It could also chill the medical marijuana movement, both in California and nationwide. Nine other states are considering legislation embracing medical marijuana. Half a dozen others are poised to introduce bills advocating medical marijuana but aren't expected to progress until an outcome is reached in the Oakland case.
Though lawyers for the Oakland club insist that the essence of state marijuana laws is not at risk, advocates remain worried about a potentially sweeping ruling.
