SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO HEAR CASE ON SEIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Garden Grove Had Appealed a Ruling That Ordered the Return of Drug
Seized From a Patient During a Traffic Stop.

More than three years after Garden Grove police seized a small amount
of marijuana from a chronic pain patient, the U.S. Supreme Court on
Monday refused to consider the city's argument -- which divided
California's major law enforcement organizations -- that it should
not have to give the drugs back.

Advocates cheered the development as a step forward for medical
marijuana users to get their "medicine" back from police.

"This is our biggest legal victory to date, and we're very glad it's
now become final," said Joe Elford, an attorney with Americans for
Safe Access, an Oakland-based medical marijuana advocacy group.

City officials expressed disappointment and said their position was
never to challenge the constitutionality of California's medical
marijuana law, only whether police could be forced to return the drug.

Police pulled over Felix Kha, a Garden Grove resident, in June 2005
for a traffic violation and found him in possession of one-third of
an ounce of marijuana.

Though Orange County prosecutors dropped drug charges after a doctor
confirmed that the cannabis was for medical use, police refused to
return the drugs on the grounds that to do so violated federal drug
distribution laws.

A judge in Orange County Superior Court sided with Kha, ordering the
police to return his marijuana. But the city again refused and
instead appealed to California's 4th District Court of Appeal. The
court of appeal also sided with Kha, declaring that patients enjoy a
federally protected property right to their medical marijuana.

Garden Grove argued that such a right doesn't exist since federal law
makes marijuana possession illegal in almost all circumstances, and
asked the California Supreme Court to look at the case, but in March
the court refused.

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to review the decision brings
the case to a close.

Elford said his group has received hundreds of complaints from
medical marijuana patients about local police seizing their drugs on
the logic that "we'll take it from you and let the courts sort it out."

With the Kha case closed, he said, "There will be hundreds, if not
thousands of patients who will no longer be subject to the
confiscation of their medicine." Elford said that California, one of
13 states that had declared medical marijuana to be legal, has as
many as 300,000 valid medical marijuana patients.

A litany of the state's major law enforcement organizations opposed
the return of Kha's marijuana, including the California State
Sheriffs' Assn., the California Police Chiefs Assn., the California
Peace Officers' Assn., and the California District Attorneys Assn.,
along with 15 cities or counties. But Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown
supported Kha's position.

Lawyers for Garden Grove argued that California law didn't contain a
specific provision for the return of medical marijuana, and contended
that to return the drugs would violated federal law. M. Lois Bobak,
an attorney for Garden Grove, called the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal
to review the case a disappointment. She said police lawfully seized
Kha's marijuana since, at the time he was pulled over, he could not
prove he had a legal right to possess marijuana .

She said Garden Grove did not challenge the constitutionality of
California's medical marijuana law, called the Compassionate Use Act.

"The only thing Garden Grove argued was that requiring police to
return properly seized marijuana would conflict with federal law,"
Bobak said. "There's nothing in the Compassionate Use Act that says
police have to return marijuana that is properly seized."

Elford said Kha's marijuana was never returned, and that his client
moved out of Garden Grove as the case was making its way through the
courts. Despite his victories, given the amount of marijuana
involved, "it wasn't worth his while" to return and claim it now.

"I'm in good spirits today. I've been litigating this thing for over
three years," Elford said Monday. "It's been a long, strange journey."