Top Court Mulls Marijuana Battle

The medical marijuana dispute has wafted its way to the inner chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.

CBS News Correspondent Howard Arenstein reports the high court has agreed to decide whether "medical necessity" is a defense to the federal law that makes marijuana distribution a crime.

The justices will review a case involving the Clinton administration's effort to stop a California group from providing the drug to seriously ill patients for pain relief.

Congress has decided that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use," Justice Department lawyers told the justices. A lower court decision allowing the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative to distribute the drug "threatens the government's ability to enforce the federal drug laws," government lawyers added.

In August, the Supreme Court put the lower court ruling on hold and barred the California club from distributing marijuana while the government pursued its appeal.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not participate in the case. His brother, Charles, a federal trial judge in San Francisco, previously barred distribution of marijuana only to have his decision reversed by a federal appeals court.

Eight states in addition to California have medical-marijuana laws in place or approved by voters: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington state, Nevada and Colorado.

California's law, passed by the voters in 1996, authorizes the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes upon a doctor's recommendation.

The Oakland group said its goal is "to provide seriously ill patients with safe access to necessary medicine so that these individuals do not have to resort to the streets."

But the federal Controlled Substances Act includes marijuana among the drugs whose manufacture and distribution are illegal.

In an interview with CBS Radio News, Cannabis Buyers Club founder Dennis Peron said he believes the Buyer's Club will eventually win its case.

"The will of the people will prevail," says Peron, who notes that the Club's defense is based on an old English law which says it is acceptable to use something that is medically necessary.

In other action, the Supreme Court Monday:

• Heard arguments on a North Carolina case on the legality of voting districts allegedly based on race and ruled in a Alabama case on a similar issue. The justices ruled against the challenge to the Alabama voting districts, on the grounds that the individuals who filed the lawsuit did not have the legal standing to be the ones to bring that challenge.
  
  
• Agreed to hear the appeal of a man on death row in Texas whose lawyers say he is mentally retarded and has the reasoning capacity of a 7-year-old. Prosecutors contend that Johnny Paul Penry is ignorant, not retarded. Texas Attorney General John Cornyn says Penry is "a schemer, a planner and can be purposely deceptive." Penry, who stabbed a woman with a pair of scissor, had his execution blocked on Nov. 16, just hours before he was to be put to death.
  
  
• Turned down, without comment, appeals by two former Archer Daniels Midland executives convicted of trying to fix the global market for a livestock feed additive.
  
  
• Upheld, without comment, the new South Carolina law banning possession of video gambling machines. Video gambling was a multi-billion dollars business in the state until the ban went into effect last July and gambling machine operators were hoping to get back into business.
• agreed to hear arguments in a case involving a Tennessee mushroom company, on whether the government has the right to require private, generally unregulated industries to kick in to pay for ad campaigns similar to the government's Got Milk? promoting the dairy industry.
  
  
• Agreed to take on another tax case, this one in North Carolina, focusing on how affiliated companies which file joint tax returns should calculate product liability losses.

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