The issue has particular resonance in California, which in 1996 became one of the handful of states acknowledging a medical use for marijuana - if prescribed by a doctor -- when voters passed Proposition 215.   Some physicians and many patients maintain marijuana is effective in the treatment of glaucoma and in restoring the appetites and controlling the nausea of those undergoing chemotherapy, among other uses.

      Congress specifically tried to counteract state initiatives in 1998 with a declaration that only the Food and Drug Administration could clear a drug for medical use, and that the use, possession and distribution of marijuana was still banned by federal law.

      The U.S. attorney's office filed a civil action against the Cannabis Club in January 1998 after undercover government agents purchased marijuana there. In response, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the club, ordering it not to engage "in the manufacture or distribution of marijuana, or the possession of marijuana with the intent to manufacture and distribute ."

      Instead of attacking the entire injunction, the club asked the judge and later a federal appeals court to modify it to include a broad exemption for "persons claiming a 'medical necessity' to smoke marijuana." The club asked for permission to distribute marijuana to people who obtain a doctor's certificate saying the marijuana was needed to ease or treat a serious medical condition.

      The judge refused the club's request, but a federal appeals court did not.   In ordering changes to the original injunction, the appeals court said the judge did not consider the "strong public interest in the availability of a doctor-prescribed treatment that would help ameliorate the condition and relieve the pain and suffering of a large group of persons with serious or fatal illness."

      The appeals court pointed out that the City of Oakland had "declared a public health emergency" because of the judge's original ban on distributing marijuana to the sick.   When neither the judge nor the appeals court would stay the effects of the modified injunction, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court Wednesday for a stay.

      In asking that the justices block the appeals court ruling, U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman said it was likely that four of the nine members of the Supreme Court would vote to review the case - only four Supreme Court votes are necessary to accept a case for argument or summary judgment.

      Waxman said the appeals court ruling guts the Controlled Substances Act, which gives the attorney general and the secretary of health and human services the authority to allow the use of an illicit drug for medical uses, not the courts.

      The rulings from the judge and the appeals court "also threaten the government's ability to enforce the Controlled Substances Act within the 9th (U.S.) Circuit" controlled by the appeals court - California, Washington state, Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Nevada - "and create incentives for drug manufacturers and distributors to invoke the asserted needs of others as a justification for their drug trafficking."

      The Justice Department's emergency application goes to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who oversees the 9th U.S. Circuit. O'Connor can act on her own or refer the government's request to the full Supreme Court for a vote.