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* Original dated: Wed Jan 15, 07:52
From: ACLU Newsfeed Owner 
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01-14-97
ACLU Newsfeed -- ACLU News Direct to YOU
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TODAY'S NEWS:
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* Doctors, Patients File Class Action Suit To Block Federal Punishment 
   for Medical Marijuana
* ACLU, Library Groups and Others Sue to Block New York State 
   Internet Censorship Law
* ACLU Urges Supreme Court to Strike Down Georgia Law Requiring 
   Drug Tests for Candidates
* Federal Appellate Court Upholds Religious Liberty in New Jersey
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Doctors, Patients File Class Action Suit
To Block Federal Punishment for Medical Marijuana
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 14, 1997
LOS ANGELES -- A group of physicians and patients today filed a class action
suit in federal court in San Francisco seeking an injunction blocking federal
officials from taking any punitive action against physicians who simply
recommend the medical use of marijuana to their patients.
The lawsuit names as defendants: Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Director of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Thomas Constantine,
Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Janet Reno,
Attorney General of the United States; and Donna Shalala, Secretary of the
Department of health and Human Services (HHS). 
Representing the plaintiffs are the San Francisco firm of Altshuler, Berzon,
Nussbaum, Berzon & Rubin and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California.
Graham Boyd, an attorney with Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Berzon & Rubin,
said, "Our view is that the federal effort to gag physicians is blatantly
unconstitutional. Discussion between a physician and patient about the risk
and benefits of medical marijuana constitute protected speech under the First
Amendment."
"The Supreme Court," Boyd continued, "has said that the government may not
bar physicians from discussing contraception or abortion, both controversial
topics in their day.  By the same logic, federal officials may not use
controversy over marijuana as an excuse to intrude into the sanctity of the
physician-patient relationship."
Dr. Marcus Conant, a San Francisco specialist in AIDS treatment and the lead
plaintiff in the lawsuit, said, "The Federal government has threatened me and
doctors like me with dire consequences for simply discussing medical
marijuana with my patients. My colleagues and I have seen marijuana work to
relieve nausea and stimulate appetite where other drugs fail, and scores of
studies support our observations."
"The medical community," Dr. Conant continued, "deserves more respect than
having a retired General in Washington tell us how to practice medicine.
Physicians should be allowed to discuss medical marijuana without having to
risk arrest or other punishment by the federal government."
Dr. Arnold Leff, a Santa Cruz AIDS specialist who served in the White House
Drug Abuse Office under President Richard Nixon, added, "By approving
Proposition 215, California voters have endorsed the right of patients to use
marijuana medically under a physician's care. To give force to that right,
physicians also must be protected."
Jo Daly, a former police commissioner of San Francisco and a patient who uses
marijuana medically, said, "The federal government is trying to intimidate
the doctors who treat me for cancer. Marijuana literally saved my life by
stopping the horrible vomiting caused by my chemotherapy.  Bureaucrats like
Barry McCaffrey want to get in between me and my doctors and make me another
victim of their drug policies. This began a was on drugs. now it's become a
war on doctors."
The lawsuit in a direct response to the Clinton administration's December 30
announcement of its plan to fights implementation of Proposition 215 by
threatening doctors with a range of punishment if they are found to be
recommending medical marijuana to their patients.  The defendants named in
the suit are the key federal officials involved in drafting and implementing
the Clinton administration strategy.
Proposition 215 altered California law by creating a new exemption for a
specific group of people -- seriously ill patients who are using marijuana on
the "recommendation or approval" of a physician. If an arrested patient is to
be exonerated, he or she must prove that a physician advised that marijuana
was medically appropriate for that patient.
However, given the new threats of federal action against physicians who
recommend marijuana, doctors face a difficult choice when they observe that
marijuana appears to be medically appropriate for a patient. Doctors can
inform patients of their truthful medical opinion, and expose themselves and
their practice to punitive action that could destroy their livelihood, or
censor  their discussions with patients, depriving them of useful treatment
alternatives and eroding the trust and confidence essential to effective
medical care.
The lawsuit filed today argues that such a choice is no choice at all, and
that the threat against doctors is in fact an unconstitutional intrusion into
communications between doctor and patient with the potential to harm both.
The doctor's recommendation to the patient, and his or her public
acknowledgement of that recommendation in the context of a criminal
proceeding against the patient, both constitute protected speech for which
any penalties at all would be impermissible, the suit argues.
Boyd, the attorney helping with the suit, said, "there must be a means
available to punish those who would abuse the new law, whether they be bogus
'patients' or profiting doctors. And our lawsuit is carefully phrased to
provide no comfort to a doctor who recommends marijuana without having a
good-faith diagnosis, based on a bona fide physician-patient relationship."
"But," Boyd continued, "the Clinton administration vastly overreached in
deciding to threaten all California doctors. That overly broad threat made
this action necessary."
"This lawsuit," said Dr. Conant, the San Francisco AIDS care physician,
"directly challenges the federal government's declaration that any doctor
making any recommendation for marijuana is committing a punishable act - and
it offers real hope of protection for responsible physicians in this state."
Statement of Ann Brick
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California
The federal government's current efforts to insert itself between doctors and
their patients when it comes to recommending medical marijuana is contrary to
our most fundamental First Amendment values.  The central purpose of the
First Amendment is to protect dissent from the government's version of the
facts on any particular issue, including the issue of medical marijuana.  
The doctors who are plaintiffs in this lawsuit are asserting their right to
tell patients, when they believe it is medically appropriate to do so, that
the medical use of marijuana may help in the treatment or management of their
disease.  The government's recent threats to go after doctors who give such
advice is a heavy-handed attempt to silence a group that is particularly
well-placed to speak with authority in delivering a message that is different
from the government's official line.  It is the purpose of this lawsuit to
see that the government does not succeed in silencing these physicians.
Doctors have a First Amendment right to speak on the issue of medical
marijuana, not only when speaking to the public, but when speaking to their
patients as well.
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ACLU, Library Groups and Others Sue to Block
New York State Internet Censorship Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 14, 1997
NEW YORK -- The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties
Union, the American Library Association and others today filed a lawsuit
seeking an
injunction against a New York statute criminalizing free speech in
cyberspace.
At an interactive news conference held at CyberCafe today in downtown
Manhattan, the groups said they were filing suit because the law, aimed at
shielding
minors from "indecency," is an unconstitutional content-based restriction on
free
speech that would reduce adult communications to levels acceptable for a
six-year-old.
The ACLU said that the New York law is similar to the federal Communications
Decency Act, which the ACLU, the ALA and others successfully challenged in
federal district court in Philadelphia after it became law last February. In
addition, a
separate three-judge panel in New York found the CDA unconstitutional on
First
Amendment grounds. The Philadelphia case, Reno v. ACLU, is currently under
review by the Supreme Court, and the New York case is pending in the Supreme
Court.
"It is sad that the state of New York, known for its wide-ranging free speech
traditions and dedication to the arts, has passed a law that could send a
person to
prison for up to four years for talking about safer sex, or displaying online
classic
nudes or other artistic images," said Norman Siegel, executive director of
the New
York Civil Liberties Union, which lobbied against the law's passage.
"Instead of 'roaring into the next century,' Governor Pataki is attempting to
muffle a
uniquely democratic mode of communication. This new law must be declared
unconstitutional so that all New Yorkers can engage in uninhibited, open and
robust
freedom of expression on the Internet," Siegel added.
Section 235.21(3) of the New York Penal Law, which became effective on
November 1, 1996, makes it a crime to disseminate "indecent" materials that
are
"harmful to minors" through any computer communications network.
"Like the federal CDA, the New York law is technically and economically
infeasible
to enforce, it blocks speech that has value to a great many people, and it
ignores
effective alternatives available both to protect children and to protect free
speech,"
said Ann Beeson, an ACLU national staff attorney and member of the Reno v.
ACLU litigation team. The ACLU is also lead counsel in ALA v. Pataki.
"Anyone who thinks children will be protected by this law is sadly mistaken,"
Beeson said. "Experts estimate that at least 40 per cent of information on
the Internet originates from non-U.S. sites, which minors will still be able
to access. The only group this law really protects is politicians, who can
claim they are passing 'tough' legislation. Everyone else is out in the
cold."
The American Library Association (ALA) is also concerned that the law fails
to
distinguish between material that may be "harmful" to very young minors and
material
that may be "harmful" to teenagers, according to Judith Krug, director of the
ALA's
Office of Intellectual Freedom, a plaintiff in the suit.
"Our concern is that the determination as to what is harmful or inappropriate
for young people is so subjective that libraries and librarians will be
placed in the untenable position of having to second-guess what is going to
be appropriate for individual computer
users," Krug said. "We feel it is the responsibility of parents and/or
guardians to guide their children when they access the Internet in the
library or at home."
Today's lawsuit is the second such challenge to a state cybercensorship law,
according to the ACLU. The first was filed by the ACLU and others in
September
against a statute in Georgia, now scheduled to go to trial in late January.
The ACLU
said it has been monitoring state regulation of the Internet and that
currently, over 20
states have considered such laws.
The complaint filed against the New York law includes the assertion that the
Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution bars state regulation of
the
Internet because it is an interstate communications medium.
"The nature of the Internet makes state regulation extremely problematic,
because it
forces everyone in the country to comply with one state's law," said Ann
Beeson, an
ACLU national staff attorney who monitors state cybercensorship laws. "If
fifty
states pass fifty contradictory laws, Internet users will be virtually
paralyzed for fear
of violating one or more of those laws."
Beeson added that a High Court decision striking down the federal CDA would
not
necessarily prevent other states from passing unconstitutional Internet
censorship
laws.
"However, to the extent that the New York and federal laws are similar, if
the
Supreme Court strikes down the CDA we think the New York court will have no
choice but to do the same," she said.
The ACLU did not challenge another provision of the New York law, which
targets
pedophiles who use the Internet to "importune, invite or induce" a minor to
engage in
sexual contact.
Plaintiffs in the case are the American Library Association, the Freedom to
Read
Foundation, the New York Library Association, the American Booksellers
Foundation for Free Expression, Westchester Library System, BiblioBytes,
Association of American Publishers, Interactive Digital Software Association,
Magazine Publishers of America, Public Access Networks Corp. (PANIX),
ECHO, NYC Net, Art on the Net, Peacefire and the American Civil Liberties
Union.
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