FEDERAL INJUNCTION HALTS POT BUYERS CLUBS

Three cannabis buyers clubs that are still functioning must immediately
halt the distribution of marijuana under a permanent injunction issued by
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer.

The order, dated and filed Monday in San Francisco, is expected to further
disenfranchise California's medical marijuana patients, some of whom depend
on pot cooperatives for their medicine.

Seriously ill Californians, under state law, have had the right to use
marijuana, with a doctor's recommendation, since passage of Proposition
215, the "Compassionate Use Act," in 1996.

But U.S. law bars the cultivation, distribution or possession of marijuana
by anyone, and federal authorities have been using every tactic available
to them to stop the gains made by California's pro-pot brigade.

By employing a permanent injunction to stop the distribution of cannabis by
cooperatives, the government avoids the necessity of charging and trying
the clubs criminally before California jurors who might have voted for
Prop. 215.

Monday's ruling has an unfortunate downside, according to Robert A. Raich,
an attorney for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, one of the three
clubs affected by the order.

Now patients who don't grow their own medicine "will have to go out to the
streets and be exposed to the criminal element, as well as the danger of
getting medicine of questionable quality," he said.

Such things actually did happen the last time the federal government shut
down a pot club, Raich said.

"Some of its members did, indeed, get robbed or were sold something that
was not marijuana," he observed.

According to Raich, however, the order by Breyer came as no surprise.

"We had been anticipating this for some time. We even asked the judge to
expedite it," he said.

"Now we are finally in a posture where we can appeal all the issues" to the
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Raich said.

The only issue off the table, according to Raich, is the distribution or
cultivation of marijuana for medical necessity.

That was addressed, and rejected, by the U.S. Supreme Court last May.

"A medical-necessity exception for marijuana is at odds with the terms of
the (U.S.) Controlled Substances Act," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for
the court, which voted unanimously, 8-0.

"The statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical
benefits worthy of an exception, outside the confines of a
government-approved research project," he stated.

In addition to the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, which provides pot
to patients suffering from AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other serious
ailments, Monday's order will also impact the Marin Alliance for Medical
Marijuana and the Ukiah Cannabis Buyers Club, Raich said.

Two other cooperatives were originally a part of the action, but they are
no longer operating, Raich said.