WAR ON SICK PEOPLE

A medical marijuana case in Ventura County is being billed as yet another
example of how confusing and inherently difficult it is to understand
Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative whereby the people authorized sick
people to use marijuana medicinally. In fact, it's another example of law
enforcement agencies resisting the clear intentions and implications of the
law.

Mike Loftus, a 33-year-old Newbury Park resident with an inner-ear ailment,
will go on trial shortly for possessing ''too much'' medicinal cannabis, or
marijuana. After having been arrested and cleared in 1999 and 2001 on
similar charges, he faced Ventura County police barging into his home again
last October.

They seized 24 of the 29 plants he had growing, and charged him with
possession for sale. They also seized money he had borrowed on his credit
card to pay his bills, and they still haven't returned it.

There is no basis in law for police and prosecutors to act this way. The
voter-approved law, now in the California Health and Safety Code, simply
says that laws that forbid possession, cultivation and use of marijuana
''shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient's primary caregiver, who
possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the
patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician.''

The law doesn't say ''only as much as the police think is right'' or ''up
to 1 ounce.'' It says ''shall not apply.'' It leaves the decision of how
much a patient should have to be made between the physician and the
patient, not by police, legislators or prosecutors. The proponents of the
law didn't want bureaucrats or police making medical decisions they are not
qualified to make.

We hope Mr. Loftus' case is dismissed with instructions by the judge for
the police to quit harassing him and his family -- or any other patient.

Perhaps that would help send the message to police and prosecutors
statewide that while they might not like the law they are obliged to follow
it -- and as state agents they are obliged to enforce state law, not
federal law, when there is an apparent conflict.