SUPERVISORS CHALLENGE PROP. 215

County Suit Also Takes On Medical Pot ID Card Law

California's medical marijuana law, battered in court by the Bush
administration, faced a legal challenge from a new source Friday --
San Diego County supervisors, who sued to overturn Proposition 215
and a law requiring counties to issue identification cards to users
of medicinal pot.

Both the 1996 voter initiative and the identity-card law, which took
effect last year, should be ruled unenforceable because they conflict
with the federal law banning marijuana possession and distribution,
the county argued in a suit filed in federal court in San Diego.

"The Board of Supervisors does not believe it should be mandated to
issue cards relating to the medical use of marijuana when federal law
said that's a crime," County Counsel John Sansone said in an
interview after filing the suit. In order to contest the card
requirement, he said, the county also had to challenge Prop. 215, the
basis of the new law.

The lawsuit was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year
allowing the federal government to prosecute patients in California
and the 10 other states that allow medical use of marijuana. The
court had ruled earlier that the federal government could shut down
dispensaries that supplied marijuana to California patients. Both
cases were victories for the Bush administration.

Last year's ruling, in a suit by patients from Oakland and Butte
County, upheld the enforcement of federal drug laws against users of
marijuana grown and distributed entirely within a state. But it did
not overturn Prop. 215's protections of patients from local
prosecution. The San Diego suit, if it succeeded, would entirely
invalidate the initiative.

Prop. 215 allows patients to obtain and use marijuana, with their
doctors' recommendation, without being charged under state drug laws.
Legislation passed in 2003 and implemented last summer requires
counties to provide state-issued ID cards to patients and their
caregivers, who can show the cards to police as evidence of
physicians' approval.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Health Services Department put the ID
card program into effect after getting an opinion from Attorney
General Bill Lockyer that the Supreme Court ruling did not overturn
Prop. 215 or expose county or state officials to federal prosecution
for distributing the cards. No county besides San Diego has objected
to the requirement, the department said Friday.

Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for Lockyer, criticized the county's
lawsuit, saying that not even the federal government has tried to
knock Prop. 215 off the books.

"Since 1996 there's been a well-settled understanding between state
and federal law enforcement agencies that, due to the contradiction
between state and federal law, the feds will continue to enforce
their laws and the state will continue to enforce ours," Barankin said.

The American Civil Liberties Union also objected to the suit and said
it would seek to intervene Monday on behalf of patients.

Although the U.S. Constitution decrees that federal law overrides
conflicting state laws, "there's no requirement that states make
illegal all conduct that the federal government has made illegal,"
said ACLU attorney Allen Hopper.

Noting that most drug prosecutions take place at the state and local
levels, he said the federal narcotics law "contemplates a role for
the states to play."