CALIFORNIA TAKES A HIT

San Diego County Brings State to Court

For some San Diegans, legally obtaining marijuana was easy in the
last three years - until San Diego's Drug Enforcement Administration
raided and shut down all marijuana dispensaries in July.

Senate Bill 420 was passed in 2003 as an amendment to the 1996
Proposition 215, which allowed California doctors to write medical
marijuana recommendations. SB 420 also allowed patients and their
caregivers the right to grow marijuana for medicinal, non-profit
uses, as long as they had an identification card.

Some San Diegans interpreted the law differently, growing supplies
for many patients. More than 30 "medical marijuana" dispensaries
opened in San Diego County since the law was passed.

The laws were written for patients who suffer from illnesses such as
cancers, HIV and AIDS.

However, Damon Mosler, division chief of the San Diego County
district attorney's Major Narcotics Unit, said his department and the
DEA, through research involving undercover police buying marijuana,
discovered that the bulk of the dispensaries' customers were people
between 20 and 30 years old, or even younger, who were having
prescriptions written out for them for excuses such as minor pain and
surfing injuries.

Mosler is currently suing four doctors for allegedly issuing
questionable marijuana recommendations.

"We were seeing many students from San Diego State and other schools
getting recommendations for minor headaches or minor pain," Mosler
said. "It's hard to believe that people are so sick at 20 years old
that they need medicinal marijuana."

The dispensaries have been under the scrutiny of the DEA and
Narcotics Unit since last July, when the departments began raiding
stores and warning the owners to shut them down.

This July, the DEA raided and shut down all of the dispensaries in
San Diego County, he said.

San Diego County does not support marijuana use, as it is illegal
under federal law, and is suing the state of California for trying to
impose the identification card requirement on San Diego County.

County officials said they feel that requiring an identification card
to buy the drug is a step toward legalizing marijuana, Mosler said.

Medical marijuana patients have now joined the lawsuit - as their
supply will be more difficult to obtain.

"Nowhere in this lawsuit were the patients represented," said
Margaret Dooley, coordinator for the San Diego Drug Policy Alliance.
"So three organizations - the DPA (which co-wrote Proposition 215),
Americans for Safe Access and the American Civil Liberties Union -
filed a motion to intervene.

"We wanted to add defendants to the existing lawsuit. We won the
motion, so we asked for the county to also sue us so that patients,
providers and co-operatives (several patients who grow and share
marijuana together) could also be represented."

Mosler argues that only 3 percent of the dispensaries' customers have
illnesses stated in Proposition 215, and the rest are not legitimate
medical marijuana patients.

The next hearing for the county's case against the state and advocate
groups will be heard by Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt Jr. in
a San Diego civil court and is scheduled for Nov. 16, according to
www.medicalmj.org