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Are "States' Rights" making a comeback, this time as a plank in a progressive platform? That's the hope of US Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who introduced legislation in Congress March 2nd to allow states to decide for themselves whether to allow people to use marijuana for therapeutic purposes upon the recommendation of a doctor, and to get Federal drug-busters off the backs of states that give medical marijuana the green light.

That's exactly what voters in seven states have done, but the feds have not taken "no" for an answer when voters reject "zero tolerance" for illegal drugs. With federal backing, police still raid medical marijuana sellers' co-ops and arrest individual in states where voters decriminalized pot for sick people who need it. Congress even refused any counting of the vote last fall in a referendum on the matter in the District of Columbia. President Clinton's drug czar Barry McCaffrey has towed the party line that marijuana has no medical value whatsoever, centuries of use notwithstanding.

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McCaffrey's position is more untenable now that an independent report issued March 17th by the National Academy of Sciences agreed with what people with AIDS, cancer patients on chemotherapy, and those with other conditions have long asserted: that marijuana is uniquely effective in stopping nausea, restoring appetite, and relieving pain. The report said, however, there was no evidence that pot provided effective relief for glaucoma sufferers.

The bill sponsored by the openly gay Rep. Frank would move marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 drug, allowing doctors to prescribe its use by patients in states where legal. "States' Rights" was a bad slogan when used as a prop for race discrimination. But today it could offer a refuge from a monumentally destructive drug war that the feds show no sign of giving up. **