U.S. District judge Charles Breyer, who had requested to be assigned the case and who is the brother of the Supreme Court Justice Breyer, said yesterday he'll decide whether to close six Northern California medical marijuana clubs after he receives final briefs on the case on April 16.

The announcement by followed four hours of testimony by a federal prosecutor and several attorneys representing the clubs' owners. Two of the clubs are in San Francisco, and one each are in Oakland, Ukiah, Marin and Santa Cruz.

San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan also testified, appearing as a friend of the court on the behalf of the club owners. Hallinan said the city will supply medical marijuana to patients if its cannabis clubs are shuttered.

Mark Quinlivan, a U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer, argued that the cannabis clubs are illegal under federal law.

``Marijuana is a schedule one drug (like heroin), and it is illegal to cultivate and distribute it,'' Quinlivan said, ``but that's what the clubs are doing.''

Quinlivan said ``certain conduct'' involving marijuana may have been sanctioned under Proposition 215, but that federal law cannot be supplanted by a state proposition. He said that Congress is the only proper forum for addressing the legalization or rescheduling of any illegal drug, and that only the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could sanction research on the medical efficacy of marijuana.

``There are research projects under way, and that's one available remedy for people seeking this substance,'' he said. ``Or people can file to have the drug rescheduled (with the DEA).'' (Ed. note: It is apparently legal for Federal Attorneys to lie to the Court. With the exception of one small pilot study which was stalled for five years by NIDA and the DEA, there are no "research projects under way.")

Defense attorneys scoffed at Quinlivan's contentions.

``The last time a petition was filed to reclassify marijuana was in 1972, and it wasn't decided until 1994,'' said Gerald Uelman, one of the defense attorneys. (Ed. note: This was the NORML suit, which resulted in the DEA’s own Administrative Law judge ruling that marijuana should be made medically available. Of course, the DEA just trashed the report.) ``Cancer patients can't wait that long.''

Hallinan told Breyer that closing the clubs would cause great hardship for thousands of sick people and could actually increase crime.

``The situation would be completely unregulated, and people would have to go back to buying it illegally (on the street),'' he said. ``It would be an immensely onerous enforcement problem.''

NORML Legal Committee member, William Panzer, arguing for the Oakland Cannabis Club, said the federal government for years "has arbitrarily and capriciously," suppressed or ignored studies that showed marijuana to be a safe medicinal drug.

Attorneys for other clubs offer other arguments: That federal law may be violated to prevent a greater harm, such as the death of patients who smoke marijuana to maintain their appetites, and that privacy rights allow seriously ill patients access to drugs that will relieve pain and possibly sustain their lives.