Marijuana Convict Won't Face Drug Testing

HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html Marijuana Convict Won't Face Drug Testing
Pubdate: Tue, 27 Apr 2004
Source: Tri-Valley Herald (CA)
Copyright: 2004 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.trivalleyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/742
Cited: Raich v. Ashcroft http://angeljustice.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Keith+Alden
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MARIJUANA CONVICT WON'T FACE DRUG TESTING

Judge Cites Precedent

Citing an Oakland case's precedent, a federal magistrate in San Francisco 
refused Monday to order drug testing for a Sonoma County man who has been 
freed from federal prison camp to appeal his medical marijuana conviction.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward M. Chen said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals' ruling last December in Raich v. Ashcroft -- which said the 
federal government lacks jurisdiction over noncommercial, medical marijuana 
activity entirely within California's borders -- means courts must "tread 
very lightly" on medical marijuana issues.

Convicted of marijuana cultivation, Keith Alden was sentenced in December 
2002 to 44 months in federal prison, but he went free April 1 after a panel 
of three 9th Circuit judges -- citing the Raich ruling -- ordered him freed 
pending an appeal of his conviction. He's the first person released from 
prison due to the ruling.

A federal judge in San Jose last week cited the ruling to forbid the 
government from staging further raids against a Santa Cruz-area medical 
marijuana cooperative, now suing federal officials over a 2002 raid.

The Justice Department last week petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to 
review and overturn the ruling; the plaintiffs' lawyers have until May 20 
to file a brief explaining why the precedent should stand. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake