Federal courts ignore reason for drug's use

The closure of an Oakland, Calif. medical marijuana club has left about 2,200 patients without a legal source of the drug, which alleviates some of the suffering caused by cancer and AIDS.

Yet considering patients'' diseases are usually terminal, it seems unjust that the federal government would override a state law when its enforcement would bring no clear benefit to the people.

True, the outcome of the Civil War made it clear that states' rights were subservient to federal law, but the two issues are entirely different.

The states' rights issue of the 1860s was about slavery being allowed to expand from southern states to federal territories and other states.

Today, the issue is about relieving the pain of a few thousand terminally ill patients whose use of the drug lies outside the reasons behind its original illegalization.

California has its own health care system; its should be able to decide how it will treat the ill.

The courts should look beyond the mere letter of the law; true justice is adherence to a law's spirit, not its terminology.