From the Editor

By Peter Allen
     
      What a strange trip this medical marijuana thing has been. Medical marijuana exists in a legal limbo-permitted as a sort of gray market in eleven states (California was the first) and outlawed in all 50 by the federal government. If this isn't reefer madness, what is? Associate Editor Laura McClure writes about this situation with considerable finesse in this month's cover feature ("Fuming Over Pot Clubs," page 24). McClure believes that the tension between growing local disenchantment with medical marijuana dispensaries and federal obstinacy over the reclassification of marijuana is coming to a head. The marijuana boutique she writes about, the Green Cross, was chased out of her San Francisco neighborhood, but it is poised to reopen soon in the city's North Beach area. Considering the arc of acceptance and rejection in McClure's neighborhood, I believe it won't be long before irate North Beach neighbors, armed with pitchforks and torches, will chase the Green Cross into yet another neighborhood or perhaps out of the city altogether.
      In the meantime, the federal government continues to act like a disapproving parent. As McClure was readying her article for publication, the Food and Drug Administration announced there were "no sound scientific studies" supporting the medical use of marijuana. This, despite a 1999 review (cited by McClure) by the Institute of Medicine-which is a part of the National Academy of Sciences-that found marijuana "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting." Meanwhile, efforts to pursue further research have been thwarted by the federal government: The DEA has so far denied a University of Massachusetts professor permission to grow a small patch of high-quality marijuana for research purposes. Critics of medical marijuana, however, say the medical issue is merely a smoke screen for those who simply want to legalize marijuana. After reading McClure's article about the regulatory dance between distributors and local law enforcement officials, it's clear that those who want to legalize marijuana have played the medical-use angle quite well.
      Though fierce, the fights over medical marijuana are nothing like the quasi-theological debates dealing with potential conflicts created by lateral moves, which is covered in Senior Editor Tom Brom's Full Disclosure column (page 17). "The trouble now," says Brom, "is that the current ethics rules no longer fit practice at the megafirms, or their client bases. The ABA is more open to letting the rules fit the changes; the Rules Revision Commission of the State Bar is less amenable to change." Not mentioned in his column (for space reasons) is something he told me in the course of his reporting: Until 18 years ago "ethical walls" were commonly called "Chinese Walls." In a 1988 concurring opinion, court of appeals Justice Harry Low (now with JAMS) called the phrase "singularly inappropriate" and a "piece of legal flotsam which should be emphatically abandoned." Thanks to Low's opinion, it has been.
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