An inhumane court ruling.

SOMEDAY, Washington will catch up with the 72 percent of Americans over 45 who believe adults should be able to use medical marijuana if a physician recommends it, according to a 2004 poll by the AARP.

First, however, voters are going to have to make some noise.

Or as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in last week's Supreme Court ruling that upheld the federal government's authority to prosecute medical-marijuana users, "the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress." Too bad the drag-war hawks have Washington spooked. Lawmakers don't want to appear soft on drugs, so they are afraid to call an end to prosecuting people in pain.

That's why marijuana is a "Schedule I" drug in the federal lexicon, which puts the drug in the same legal classification as heroin. Less dangerous drags--like cocaine and morphine--fall under Schedule II and are available for medical use. But not marijuana.

That's because there is no recognized medical use for marijuana, according to the American Medical Association, the drug warriors respond.

Fair enough. But the California Medical Association supports medical marijuana. Chief Executive Jack Lewin, a physician, explained that his group believes the government should listen to doctors who recommend the drug. What's more, in passing Proposition 215 in 1996, voters have spoken.

Many California doctors recommend the drug because they've seen salutary results with marijuana not found with its legal pill-form equivalent, Marinol. For some reason, Marinol doesn't take with many patients, who find relief by smoking, drinking or eating marijuana.

Marijuana, they say, relieves their nausea, mitigates the ravages of some diseases and increases appetites depressed by chemotherapy.

Doctors have risked their careers recommending an illegal drag. And many users note that medical marijuana relieves their nausea without dragging them into oblivion.

Sure, some medical-marijuana boosters may be looking for an excuse to smoke pot.

Ten states, including California, have legalized medical marijuana. Republicans who believe in states' rights should support these states, but in 2004, only 19 Republicans voted for a measure offered by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, that would have blocked federal enforcement against users of medical marijuana in states that have legalized its use. It failed 268 to 148.

"We've got 70 percent of the Democrats," said Bill Piper, of the anti-drug-war Drug Policy Alliance. Most, but not all.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Modesto, is one of two California House Democrats, as Piper put it, "voting against their own state."

The White House drug czar John Walters has been a strong opponent of medical marijuana. As he sees it, pot-heads are using sick people to push marijuana.

I am sure he is fight. And I don't care.

This year, I watched a friend die who lived longer, I believe, because she could drink a tea that revived her appetite, mitigated her need for other pain control and probably bought her a few extra weeks with her children. Marinol didn't help her. Marijuana did.

So I'll quote what Dr. Marcus Conant once said to me. Conant is the doctor who identified the first cases of Kaposi' s sarcoma among San Francisco AIDS patients. He also successfully sued to stop the federal government from acting against doctors who recommend medical marijuana.

Conant explained: "To deny sick people relief because of abuse is not humane."

Debra J. Saunders is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.