MEDICAL POT LIMITS STRUCK DOWN BY HIGH COURT

In a victory for medical marijuana users, the state Supreme Court on
Thursday upheld a state law that protects them from arrest if they
show police official identification cards. The court also overturned
a law that limits how much pot patients can carry and how many plants
they can grow.

The court unanimously ruled that the limits - 8 ounces of dried
marijuana, six mature plants or 12 immature plants - conflicted with
Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative that made California the first
state to legalize marijuana for medical use.

Prop. 215 said a patient, with a doctor's approval, could possess an
amount of marijuana that was "reasonably related to the patient's
current medical needs," and set no numerical limits.

The 2003 legislation, which allowed a jury to convict a defendant who
possessed or grew more than the specified amounts, "takes away from
rights granted by the initiative" and is therefore an invalid
amendment, Chief Justice Ronald George said in the court ruling.

But he said the possession and cultivation limits can still apply to
the identification cards authorized by the same law. Holders of the
cards, issued by counties, can't be arrested if they possess no more
than 8 ounces of marijuana, an amount that individual counties are
also allowed to increase.

A state appeals court in Los Angeles had thrown out the ID cards
along with the numerical limits in a May 2008 ruling, saying they
were part of the same invalid law. The state Supreme Court put the
ruling on hold while it considered the case, and agreed Thursday with
both a state prosecutor and a defense lawyer - a highly unusual
consensus - that patients could still use the cards.

"It seems clear that the Legislature would have preferred such a
result" if it had known that the mandatory possession and cultivation
limits would be overturned, George said. He noted that lawmakers
passed a measure in 2004 to repeal the numerical limits, but Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

The ruling overturned the conviction of Patrick Kelly, who was
arrested in October 2005 at his home in Lakewood (Los Angeles County)
where sheriff's deputies found seven marijuana plants and 12 ounces
of dried marijuana.

Kelly had a doctor's approval to use marijuana for relief from
multiple ailments, but a jury convicted him of illegal possession and
cultivation after hearing that he had exceeded the limits of the 2003
law. He was sentenced to two days in jail.

The result of the ruling, said Gerald Uelmen, a Santa Clara
University law professor who represented Kelly, is that a patient
with an identification card can be arrested only for carrying more
than 8 ounces of marijuana or growing more than the specified number of plants.

Someone without a card can be arrested for carrying any amount, if
police have evidence that the person is selling marijuana or using it
for nonmedical purposes, but defendants in any case can still argue
that they possessed only what they reasonably needed for medical
purposes, Uelmen said.

"People will have a reason to register (for an ID card) and I hope
they will," he said.

A medical marijuana advocacy group expressed some qualms, however.
The numerical limits provided some guidance to police and patients,
and their invalidation "may have left too much discretion to law
enforcement in deciding what are reasonable amounts," said Joe
Elford, lawyer for Americans for Safe Access.

The case is People vs. Kelly, S164830. The ruling can be viewed at
links.sfgate.com/ZJDJ.