SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 31: A federal appeals court here on Tuesday ruled that the federal government may not revoke the licences of doctors who recommend marijuana to their patients.

The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, rejected the government’s argument that “a doctor’s ‘recommendation’ of marijuana may encourage illegal conduct by the patient.”

The court cited reports by the National Academy of Sciences, the Canadian government and the British House of Lords concluding that marijuana carries potential medical uses in controlling pain and nausea and in stimulating the appetite.

The ruling is seen as a legal victory for voter initiatives in nine US states that legalized marijuana for medical purposes. It upholds a five-year-old lower-court decision that blocked the government’s efforts to frustrate a 1996 initiative in California.

The California law, known as Proposition 215, allows patients to grow and possess marijuana so long as they have a doctor’s written or oral recommendation. It says doctors may not be punished for making such a recommendation.

Rather than focusing on doctors, federal efforts to override state medical marijuana initiatives have generally taken the form of raids on marijuana clubs and farms, mostly in California.