International Herald Tribune

January 16, 1997

SAN FRANCISCO (NYT) - A group of doctors and patients advocating the medical use of marijuana has sued senior officials of the Clinton administration to block the government from penalizing doctors who recommend the drug to sick people under a new California law.

The class-action suit, filed Tuesday in a federal court here says the administration's plan to prosecute or strip prescription licences from doctors who endorse the drug for those with such illnesses as cancer and AIDS intrudes on the doctor-patient relationshipin violation of the First Amendment.

"The lawsuit doesn't deal with whether marijuana is efficacious as a medicine or not or whether people should be smoking it or taking it," said a plaintiff, Dr. Marcus Conant. "The suit is all about freedom of speech."

The suit opens a new front in a legal and political battle that has raged since November, when voters in California and Arizona approved ballot initiatives that relax laws against the possession of drugs for medical purposes.