The Drug Policy Alliance helped initiate a class action lawsuit on behalf of California’s physicians and patients to uphold a medical doctor’s right to recommend medical marijuana to his or her patients. On Tuesday, October 14 the U.S. Supreme Court will announce whether or not they will hear the case.

The Supreme Court is responding to a request by the Bush administration’s Solicitcor General to review last year’s unanimous decision by the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that doctors have the right to recommend or approve marijuana as treatment to their seriously ill patients. This case – Conant v. Walters – upheld a lower court’s injunction prohibiting the federal government from threatening physicians with revocation of their licenses to prescribe medications should the doctor recommend, or even discuss, medical marijuana use with their patients.

In 1996, by popular vote, Californians passed Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act, which declared that laws against marijuana possession and cultivation “shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient's primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana ... upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician.” The federal government, however, threatened physicians who recommend medical marijuana pursuant to state law.

Along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Alliance is leading the legal efforts in challenging this harmful federal policy.