COUNTY SUES OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Challenges State Laws That Permit Such Use

County supervisors kept their promise and sued the state yesterday in
an attempt at overturning laws that permit medical use of marijuana.

A suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego maintains that
federal statutes prohibiting possession and use of marijuana pre-empt
state law.

Advertisement Proposition 215, the "Compassionate Use Act" passed by
voters in 1996, permits possession and use of marijuana for medical
purposes. The state Legislature in 2003 passed a law requiring
counties to provide identification cards to registered users of
medical marijuana.

At a board meeting in November, supervisors Bill Horn, Dianne Jacob
and Pamela Slater-Price voted to refuse to implement the
identification card system. Supervisors subsequently voted to sue the
state to overturn both laws.

No other county has refused to comply with the registration program,
said Lea Brooks of the state Department of Health Services.

Fifteen counties are participating, and 779 identification cards have
been issued to medical marijuana users in the state, Brooks said.

Supervisors are unmoved.

"At a time when drug cartels are flooding our streets with marijuana,
and gang warfare is rampant, it's impossible for the Board of
Supervisors to give its blessing to the use of a drug that is
forbidden by federal law," said board chairman Bill Horn.

Supervisor Dianne Jacob said: "The clash between state and federal
laws has resulted in confusion and chaos. If the county were to
comply with state medical marijuana laws, we would facilitate the
arrest of our own residents."

"It is my sincere hope that the court will resolve this convoluted
situation once and for all," Jacob said.

The suit, filed against the state and the Department of Health
Services, says the California's medical marijuana laws are void
because they not only conflict with federal drug laws, but also a
1961 international treaty.

More than 150 countries, including the United States, participated in
the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that year. The treaty
specifically addresses marijuana and states that parties to the
treaty shall prohibit production, manufacture, export, import, trade,
possession or use of the drug "except for amounts which may be
necessary for medical and scientific research only."

The treaty designates the National Institute on Drug Abuse as the
agency responsible for any such research, making it the only legal
source for marijuana in the country, according to the county's lawsuit.

"We think a court needs to look at facts that will show the state of
California is doing things that are contrary to treaties the U.S. has
entered into with other nations," county Counsel John Sansone said yesterday.

"It's an esoteric thing that not a lot of people know about," Sansone
added. "We've taken some time to do some in-depth research."

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to file as early as Monday a
legal motion to intervene on behalf of medical marijuana users, said
Kevin Keenan, executive director of the San Diego and Imperial Counties ACLU.

"Our purpose and our role is to make sure the ill and dying people
who use medical marijuana have their rights represented," Keenan said.

"They're essentially wasting taxpayers' money, not for good legal
reasons but for bad political ones," Keenan said.

Medical marijuana activists have attempted to get the board to change
its stance. Last week, they rallied at the county administration
building, and Wednesday they launched a petition drive to put an
initiative on the November ballot to establish term limits for the
county supervisors.

Brooks, the spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services,
said her department had no comment yesterday, since it hadn't yet
seen the lawsuit.