During the debate in Maine two years ago on the medical marijuana referendum, supporters argued that the benefits the illegal drug offers in relieving pain and nausea should not be denied to those being treated for such diseases as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma. Opponents argued that in a tussle between state law and federal law, all the compassion in Maine could not overcome the intractability in Washington.

Supporters won at the polls that November. Opponents, though hardly with reason to gloat, are still winning the argument. As the task force charged with finding a way to implement a pot-distribution program confirmed last week through its inability to reach a clear consensus, the federal obstacle blocks any real and reliable state solution. Until it is removed, Maine simply cannot get there from here.

Not that the task force didn’t try. The 29 members, a cross section of interested parties from lawmakers and law enforcers to physicians and patients, worked through several worthwhile proposals since they convened last spring. A patient registry could help avoid arrests and raids by state and local police. A state-run or state-sanctioned distribution center could keep patients from having to buy marijuana from illegal street dealers; combined with a garden, it could also eliminate valid worries about impure, perhaps chemically treated dope that might be bought on the illicit market. An investment in research could help further the efforts being made worldwide to develop non-smoking delivery methods (such as inhalers, patches and suppositories) of the active pain-relieving components in precise, controllable dosages.

Each proposal, sadly, runs headlong into the federal obstacle – it is illegal to possess marijuana. Local police chiefs and sheriffs can, like those on the task force, declare their intent not to bust sick people, yet in states with compassionate use laws, federal drug agents have busted sick people, thrown them in jail and confiscated their property. The endless lawsuits brought by the Justice Department against the state of California over the state-sanctioned “marijuana clubs” is an expensive delaying tactic Maine and its ill cannot afford. Research is stifled by the congressional ban on federal funds being used for research into an illegal substance, despite compelling evidence that research could lead to many legal and beneficial uses.

The fear members of Congress have of being labeled “pro-pot” by election opponents overwhelms all other considerations. Early last year, an Institute of Medicine review of research done here and abroad found great potential in marijuana for relief from pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea; the 35 physicians who signed the study called for an end to ban on federal funds. A few months later, in a debate that ended before it truly started, the House voted to uphold upheld the ban by a margin of more than three-to-one.

States and, increasingly, the courts, are forcing the issue. Maine was the sixth state to enact a com-passionate use law by referendum when it voted in November 1988. This summer, Hawaii became the first state to enact one by act of the legislature and signature of the governor.

The court battles in California, the first medical marijuana state, show that judges – like the public and local sheriffs, but unlike Congress and the Drug Enforcement Agency – can see the difference between medicine and getting high, a difference long recognized in the handling of opiates. Two years ago, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ordered the California marijuana clubs closed for violating federal law. This June, after reviewing the research, he reversed that order – a better informed Judge Breyer now says there is no evidence that the harm that might possibly be caused by recreational pot smoking justifies the ban on medical marijuana (the Justice Department, of course, appealed and the case now is headed for review by the Supreme Court). In early September, Judge William Alsup, also in California, ruled that the federal government could not follow through with its longstanding threat to rescind the prescription licenses of physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients.

It is always sad when Americans come to see their federal government as intrusive and stubborn. It’s sadder still when it leads to willful defiance by voters, legislators and judges. It’s tragic when what should be about pain and patients is instead about politics.