Move To Blunt Medical Pot Ruling

Supporters of medical marijuana hope to diminish the impact of last week's Supreme Court ruling.

They plan to offer an amendment to a spending bill being considered by the House which would protect people who use medical marijuana in the ten states where it is legal.

The proposal would prohibit the Justice Department from using any money in its budget to prosecute those people.

The justices ruled last week that federal drug laws trump medical marijuana statutes. That means federal authorities could prosecute people who smoke marijuana for pain relief on the advice of their doctors.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

The House has easily defeated the measure the past two years and even supporters acknowledge they expect that to happen again this time around.

The Supreme Court ruling did not strike down medical marijuana laws in California, Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont or Washington state. And state and local authorities in most of those states said they have no interest in arresting people who smoke pot because their doctors recommend it to ease pain. (Arizona also has a law on the books allowing medical marijuana, but no active program.)

Oregon, where more than 10,000 residents hold medical marijuana cards, stopped issuing new cards last week, but elsewhere officials assured the public the situation was status quo.

"People shouldn't panic. There aren't going to be many changes," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "Nothing is different today than it was two days ago, in terms of real world impact."

It remains to be seen whether the Drug Enforcement Administration will crack down on medical marijuana users. The Justice Department didn't comment.

Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said arrests of ailing patients have been rare, but the government has arrested more than 60 people in medical marijuana raids since September 2001.

Most of those arrests have been in California — the first state to allow medical marijuana, in 1996. On Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has previously supported use of pot by sick people, said only: "It is now up to Congress to provide clarity."

While the Supreme Court justices expressed sympathy for two seriously ill California women who brought the case, the majority agreed that federal agents may arrest even sick people who use the drug as well as the people who grow pot for them.

One of them, Angel Raich, said she uses marijuana for pain and nausea, and was smoking it she says when she heard the Supreme Court had ruled against her challenge to federal marijuana laws.

"We're ill, we're not trying to be disobedient. We're just using this medicine because it's saving our lives," Raich told CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.