MEDICAL POT ADVOCATE SEES ACT OF 'RETALIATION'

She questions DMV move for new driving test; agency puts hearing on
hold pending probe.

Calling it an act of "retaliation," a nationally recognized medical
marijuana advocate says she's being forced to prove to California
officials that she should still be allowed to drive.

Diane Monson, one of two Northern Californians testing the federal
government's strict stance against medical pot in a case before the
U.S. Supreme Court, received a Dec. 6 notice from the Department of
Motor Vehicles requiring a review of her driving qualifications "in
the interest of your personal safety and the safety of others using
the highways."

By late Tuesday, however, the department changed its tune,
indefinitely postponing a hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday.

"Upon being alerted by the news media to the situation involving Diane
Monson, high-ranking DMV officials acted immediately to postpone the
Thursday driver safety hearing, pending a thorough internal review to
determine all the circumstances surrounding this matter," DMV
spokesman Bill Branch said in a prepared statement.

Monson's attorney, David Michael, applauded the news. "What the DMV
did was the right thing," he said.

Without the media attention, he said, his client "would have been
stuck in a bureaucratic morass."

Michael questioned the re-examination process and wondered if there
were others whose driving qualifications were being questioned quietly.

"I don't know who else is being subjected to these types of hearings,"
Michael said.

Re-examinations are typically triggered by questions from a family
member, doctor or traffic officer about someone's driving ability, but
DMV spokesman Steve Haskins said that with the form available online,
it could have been initiated by anyone.

"Anybody could have reported her for any number of reasons," Haskins
said. "We have a responsibility to look into these reports to make
sure people are driving safely."

In the 2002-03 fiscal year, 67,992 of the state's more than 22.5
million drivers were required to undergo re-examinations, Haskins
said, and of those, 9,636 drivers had their driving privileges revoked.

Monson, an Oroville resident who uses marijuana three or four times a
day to ease back pain and spasms, said she had no idea who started the
process.

She has a clean driving record, according to state records, and she
could offer no explanation for the re-examination letter other than
her notoriety as a medical marijuana user.

"I feel somewhat that this is a retaliation for my status as a medical
marijuana user," Monson told reporters at a news conference on the
Capitol steps.

Just days before the notice of reexamination arrived in the mail,
Monson noted that she received her renewed license - good though 2010.

Michael wondered aloud how the safety hearing would be conducted,
should the process go forward.

If Monson was identified because of her back problems, how many other
Californians would fit the same criteria, he wondered? Would a doctor
decide if she's in too much pain to drive? If her marijuana use
triggered the notice, he asked, should people on prescription
painkillers have to surrender their driving privileges?

Monson said she never drives while impaired.

The state has no legal impairment or intoxication standard similar to
the 0.8 percent blood-alcohol threshold. Impairment would have to be
proved by a field sobriety test, said Tom Marshall, spokesman for the
California Highway Patrol.

Monson and Angel McClary Raich are challenging the federal
government's authority to regulate the noncommercial growing and use
of marijuana for personal medical purposes in a state that authorizes
it.

Raich does not drive, but Monson said that living some 15 miles out of
town - the last three on a steep gravel switchback road - she couldn't
get along without driving.

She said she regularly drives her Subaru Outback to meet her
accounting clients, or to go to the bank or her rental homes.

"It would truly devastate my life," she said.