Pubdate: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 Source: Orange County Register, The (CA) Copyright: 2003 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www2.ocregister.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321 IMPOSING COMPASSION Today the city and county of Santa Cruz, along with six patients, will file suit in federal district court against Attorney General John Ashcroft, "drug czar" John Walters and acting Drug Enforcement Administration honcho John Brown to prevent them from carrying out future raids on a local medical marijuana garden. The suit is unique in several respects and should raise enough substantive issues to prevent the federal officers who raided the garden last September from future aggression against sick and dying people. Last September's raid seized plants and equipment from the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a collective of patients organized to provide for their own medical marijuana in compliance with Proposition 215, which California voters approved in 1996. WAMM is probably the most scrupulous, squeaky-clean marijuana patients' organization in California. Only physician-certified patients are accepted as members, they all do what they can to help grow their own medicine and assist with other needs, the medicine is never shared outside the organization and no money changes hands. The federal raid was obviously intended to intimidate patients, to serve notice that no matter how scrupulous the procedures, the authorities might raid. The fact that it resulted only in property being seized but no charges being filed against WAMM's organizers, Valerie and Mike Corral, suggests that the feds knew they were on uncertain legal ground. This lawsuit could well undercut the legal basis for such raids. As Judy Appel, an attorney with the Drug Policy Alliance, explained to us, the suit is based on the constitutional right of citizens to manage their own pain and the circumstances under which they die. It argues that since WAMM engages in no commerce (let alone interstate commerce) the federal government has no constitutionally legitimate authority to control it. And the city and county of Santa Cruz argue that the raids interfere with their 10th Amendment rights, as government entities, to regulate and control the health and safety of their citizens. Anybody who takes the U.S. Constitution seriously should agree. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens