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."

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