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.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens