Marijuana.com

PotShot

County files suit to overturn California medical marijuana law
By: GIG CONAUGHTON | NCTimes.com | January 20, 2006

SAN DIEGO ---- County officials formally filed a precedent-setting lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Friday that could overturn California's 9-year-old medical marijuana law ---- a suit that has angered marijuana advocates here and around the state.

The seven-page lawsuit argues that California's 1996 voter-approved "Compassionate Use Act" ---- Proposition 215 ---- should be pre-empted by federal law, which says all marijuana use is illegal and that the drug has no medicinal value.

County officials and marijuana advocacy groups said the lawsuit was the first that would try to overturn any of the medical marijuana laws that voters have approved in 11 states.

John Sansone, the county's top lawyer, said there was no word on when the courts might begin listening to arguments in the lawsuit. Sansone and others expect the suit to make its way eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court.

San Diego County supervisors ---- all of whom were on the board when Prop. 215 was approved in 1996 ---- have always opposed the measure, and have often called it a "bad law" that could lead to drug abuse.

They decided to challenge the law in December, a month after the state ordered counties to create identification cards and a registration program to support Prop. 215.

Prop. 215 states that "seriously ill" people have a right to "obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes" when recommended by a doctor.

Despite their general opposition to the law ---- which was passed by 55 percent of state voters in 1996 and registered a 74 percent support level statewide in a 2004 Field Poll ---- the San Diego supervisors have repeatedly said they only want to settle the contradiction between Prop. 215 and federal law.

"We opposed Prop. 215 when it came up; that isn't the point," Bill Horn, the board's chairman, said this week. "The issue is, the state's asking the county to do something here that they know darn well is illegal ... don't ask us to break federal law."

However, the lawsuit the county filed Friday in San Diego asks the courts to ban the state from enforcing Prop. 215, essentially erasing it.

Local patients who use marijuana to ease pain and national marijuana advocacy groups have blasted the board. Several speakers, including Rudy Reyes, a burn victim of the 2003 Cedar fire who uses marijuana for pain management, asked supervisors to reconsider filing the lawsuit in recent board meetings.

On Wednesday, Reyes and other angry medical marijuana advocates, with the backing of the Marijuana Policy Project ---- a national group that would like to see marijuana regulated on a par with alcohol ---- filed letters of intent seeking to impose two-year term limits on supervisors, saying they had "lost touch with constituents."

On Friday, Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, also criticized the supervisors.

"It's probably the first time that anyone has found a board so ignorant of constitutional law that they'd waste taxpayer money on a challenge," Gieringer said. "I think the county counsel knows that it's a waste of taxpayer money, ordered by a very ignorant board of supervisors that is clearly in over its head."

But Sansone, who initially told supervisors that he thought any challenge of Prop. 215 would be a "difficult, uphill battle," said Friday that he believes the county has a good argument.

The lawsuit's basic contention is that federal law, which outlaws all marijuana use, should pre-empt California's law.

The suit cites Article VI of the U.S Constitution ---- the "Supremacy Clause" ---- which states that the constitution and federal laws "shall be the supreme law of the land" over state laws.

However, in addition, the suit cites a 1961 international treaty that the United States signed with 150 other countries ---- the "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs" ---- that also specifically outlawed marijuana use.

Sansone said Prop. 215 not only stands in contradiction to federal law, but violates the 1961 international treaty signed by the United States.

"Can you imagine what it would be like if each state got to decide to things in violation of international treaties?" Sansone asked. "I think this is an issue that is going to grab the attention of a lot of people."

Anthony Green is a lawyer and vice president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to "increasing public understanding of, and appreciation for, the constitution, its history and relevance."

Green said the issue at the heart of the county's lawsuit is federalism, which has been a major debate rumbling in the Supreme Court for decades: "Who has the powers? The state or federal governments?"

Supreme Court justices ruled on a medical marijuana issue last year. In a June 2005 decision, the justices ruled 6-3 that medical marijuana users in California and the other 10 states that have medical marijuana laws could still be arrested and prosecuted by federal law enforcement agents.

In fact, federal agents raided 13 San Diego-area marijuana dispensaries Dec. 12, including two in North County. They seized large quantities of the drug, computers and records in one of the largest crackdowns of its kind in the state. Federal officials said the dispensaries were "fronts" for distributing the drug. Marijuana advocates attacked the raids as "cowardly."

__________________
Posting Guidelines

Carl Sagan Goodness Richard Dawkins Goodness

 

dedbr

"Well folk's, I guess we see now why Bill Horn was running his mouth in the other article, Huh? He was planning to run to the Fed's for a sympathetic ear cause the state was going to make him give the hippy's medical card's to do drug's.

The 1961 treaty reffered to also allow's citizen's to recieve prescription's from doctor's outside the U.S. and bring those prescription's back into the U.S. without fear of reprisal's, but of course the U.S. has never given a damn for that clause either.

Norml had this to say....

I thought Bill Horn was ignorant, but maybe he isn't sport's fan's. There are a lot of Federal installation's in San Diego county, I believe, and maybe he's getting some coaching from some pro's,huh?
It could just be a coincidence that the raid's mentioned to close down the "front's" for "drug dealer's" were only last month.

(Dedbr step's back in the bunker...)

All access bunker pass for Norml, Bill Horn and his buddy's go on the ignorant list, and how about some Bob Dylan...

"" I shall be released...""

I sure hope so Bob, freeing the mind has to be first, tho....

Ded

__________________
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" .......... Pogo (for Prez...)

Remember to check out our most wonderful Posting Guidelines!

killer12382

The term is "crazy like a fox". You may make fun of him but once he has the feds ear and if his attempt to draw the feds into this fight works then this could be the end to prop 215. You got to watch your back on stuff like this. Just when you thought you had the state locked up and firmly in the medpot corner, stuff like this happens.

Buzzby

The current regime really doesn't want to create a major States Rights fight at this point. Their official philosophy supports States Rights and the Republicans are already in enough hot water without turning the entire West against them. Between the corruption scandal, the negative approval ratings on the President and the Iraq War, and the President's support for Intelligent Design, they're not looking for another controversy.

__________________

killer12382

This is not an issue that conservatives in the west are going to battle the white house over. This is a LIBERAL states rights issue, remember that.

 

Buzzby

That remains to be seen. Several of the medical marijuana states are generally Republican/Conservative. The West has a strong Libertarian streak.

killer12382

Libertarian does not equal Liberal. And most libertarians don't support medpot.

PotShot

Libertarians do not support a person's right to medicate themselves with cannabis? How do you figure that?

Buzzby

You really ought to have some idea what you're talking about before you make such an assertion. Not only do Libertarians favor medical marijuana, they favor an end to all forms of drug prohibition.


Libertarians are for keeping the government out of your hair unless you're hurting someone else.

vladimir

let's not forget that the white house doesn't really have much to do with this as it will be decided in the courts.

__________________
If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end of, the human experiment.