COUNTY ASKS U.S. SUPREME COURT TO ERASE STATE'S MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

San Diego County filed papers this week asking the U.S. Supreme Court
to erase California's medical marijuana law, arguing that federal
prohibitions outlawing the substance supersede California's law
allowing sick people to use it.

The county is asking the nation's highest court to overturn a state
appellate court's July decision upholding the voter-approved law
legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

"You have a conflict here between federal and state law, and we are
in the middle," 5th District Supervisor Bill Horn said Friday. "What
we have been asking all along is which takes precedence here. We will
take it as far as we can take it and get a definitive answer."

Horn's district encompasses much of North County.

County officials sued the state in 2006, arguing that federal law
that makes marijuana illegal should trump the 1996 passage of state
Proposition 215, which legalized it for patients to use with a
prescription. Patients who use marijuana say it helps them treat chronic pain.

In July, California's 4th District Court of Appeal handed medical
marijuana users a victory when it rejected the county's contention
that the state law flies in the face of federal pot prohibitions. The
appellate court found that the purpose of the federal law "is to
combat recreational drug use, not to regulate a state's medical practices."

In October, the California Supreme Court rejected the county's
request that it review the ruling. That left the county with the
option of asking the nation's highest court to step in.

San Diego Deputy County Counsel Tom Bunton said the U.S. Supreme
Court might decide by June if it will take the case.

The county's filing was met with a thumbs down but no surprise from
Adam Wolf, the lead attorney for medical marijuana patients opposed
to the challenge. Wolf on Friday called the county's request "a
waste" of taxpayers' money.

"This is an ill-fated and doomed lawsuit," Wolf said. "These are the
same recycled arguments that have been rejected by the Superior
Court, the Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court.

"With each day that San Diego does not comply with the state's
medical marijuana laws, the medical marijuana patients needlessly suffer."

Wolf, with the American Civil Liberties Union, represents the San
Diego chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws. NORML is a defendant in the county's suit.

San Bernardino County, which has worked with San Diego during the
battle, also filed a similar writ.

There also is a battle over a 2003 directive from state legislators
calling for counties to create medical marijuana identification
cards. Thus far, San Diego County has declined to issue such cards,
even though the appellate court said in its July ruling that issuing
the state-mandated cards would not put counties in conflict with federal law.

County attorney Bunton said "the state has not established any
deadline whereby the counties have to begin issuing the ID cards."

Wolf said that as many as two-thirds of California's counties have
started issuing ID cards to medical marijuana patients.