Pubdate: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 2002 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82 Author: Jane Meredith Adams, Special to the Tribune MEDICINAL MARIJUANA USERS SUE U.S. OFFICIALS OAKLAND -- A new front opened Wednesday in the long-running battle to make marijuana available for medical use as two patients sued Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, charging that the federal government may not interfere in states where patients legally are permitted to use marijuana as medicine. Eight states--California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado--have laws allowing patients to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. These laws conflict with federal law that classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive classification, and mandates that it should be seized. At issue is how much authority the Drug Enforcement Administration has over state officials. After a DEA raid of a medical marijuana distribution club in nearby Santa Cruz this summer, the question was informally debated in an exchange of letters between California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and Hutchinson. Defending the DEA's legal supremacy, Hutchinson noted that in May 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the prohibitions of the Controlled Substances Act "regardless of any `medical' justification under state law." Speaking at a news conference at federal district court in Oakland, plaintiff Angel McClary Raich of Oakland said that a nurse in 1996-97 had suggested that she try marijuana to relieve her pain, nausea and wasting syndrome. At the time, Raich was partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. "I was extremely offended," she recalled. But after trying various narcotics and medications prescribed by her doctor, Raich said she tried marijuana in late 1997 and found that it controlled pain, nausea and weight loss. In 1999, she was able to walk again but remains ill with an inoperable brain tumor and other ailments. Smoking, eating or inhaling the vapors of the drug, Raich said she now uses 2.5 ounces of marijuana a week, or more than 8 pounds a year. She said marijuana allows her to function and raise her two teenage children. "The government has waged a civil war against sick, disabled and dying Americans," Raich said. "If cannabis works for us, we should be able to have that medicine." The other plaintiffs are Diane Monson, 36, a bookkeeper who said she suffers from chronic back pain, and two individuals named as John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2. They are Raich's caregivers and grow marijuana for her. Monson said she was following county and state law by growing six marijuana plants in rural Oroville, Calif., for her personal medicinal use. Last August, DEA agents raided her home, cut down the plants and seized them. She was not charged with a crime. Attorney Robert Raich, who married Angel McClary Raich two months ago, said the federal government had overstepped its authority by interfering in an activity that involves patients and substances solely within California. "For the federal government to attack patients and caregivers for activities that never cross state lines is an absolute violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution," said Raich, who is representing the plaintiffs. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart