MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROPONENTS: DEA RAID ON POT FARM WAS ILLEGAL

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Drug Enforcement Administration's autumn raid on a
farm that cultivated pot for sick and dying people was both illegal and
immoral, members of a medical marijuana movement argued Monday in federal
court.

"We are not asserting the right to market marijuana, but to cultivate and
use it to prolong life and give comfort to the dying," said Gerald Uelmen,
a Santa Clara University law professor who represents about 200 chronically
and terminally ill people. "We are asserting the fundamental rights of
patients ... so they can meet their death without agony and suffering."

The case, which pits state rules on medical marijuana against federal laws
declaring it an illegal drug, marks the first time a public entity has sued
the federal government on behalf of patients who need medical marijuana.

The city and county of Santa Cruz sued the DEA and Attorney General John
Ashcroft in April, asking for an injunction requiring that federal agents
stay away from a cooperative farm that grows marijuana on a quiet coastal
road about 15 miles north of Santa Cruz. In September, agents uprooted
about 165 plants and arrested the owners of the Wo/Men's Alliance for
Medical Marijuana, Valerie and Michael Corral.

The lawsuit contends that since the raid, WAMM has been unable to provide
co-op members with necessary medicine to relieve nausea and pain. This has
caused an "insurmountable" level of pain and suffering and hastened the
deaths of the most vulnerable WAMM members, lawyers said.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law. State law in California -- as well
as Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington
- -- allows marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor's
recommendation.

The Supreme Court ruled in May 2002 that people charged with violating
federal drug laws cannot use medical necessity as their defense. But Uelmen
said the justices left open whether states could legalize medical marijuana
under the 10th Amendment, which grants states powers not exercised by the
federal government, or under the 14th Amendment's right to due process.

The WAMM case also hinges in part on whether the Constitution's commerce
clause applies to the California farm. The clause gives Congress power to
regulate interstate trade.

But the patients argue the farm is neither interstate nor commercial. The
cooperative is owned by about 200 patients and caregivers in the Santa Cruz
area whose doctors have endorsed the use of marijuana to minimize seizures
and migraines, or to improve patients' ability to deal with chemotherapy or
other treatment.

Members of the cooperative receive marijuana up to once a week and must
promise to use the pot only within California. If physically able, they and
their caregivers work the fields and supervise distribution of the drug in
forms such as cigarettes and baked goods, but no money trades hands. The
Corrals say the small farm could not supply more than the roughly 200 members.

Justice Department lawyer Mark Quinlivan argued that it didn't matter if
the co-op was a noncommercial operation without known ties to gangs or
out-of-state groups. Any type of drug trade was an interstate issue, he
said, and only the Food and Drug Administration can conduct experiments
using illegal drugs.

"There isn't anyone here who doesn't have a friend or relative in ... dire
straits," Quinlivan said to a courtroom packed with people in wheelchairs
or suffering from epilepsy, post-polio syndrome and terminal cancer. But,
he said, "the FDA drug approval process has served this country well over
the years."