GROUPS RESTATE CASE ON MEDICAL POT

An area medical marijuana cooperative should be free from harassment
by federal agents as should the city's recently enacted ordinance
that would establish a compassionate use office for the drug, an
amended federal court complaint filed this week contends.

Attorneys for the city and county of Santa Cruz and the Wo/men's
Alliance for Medical Marijuana filed the amended complaint in U.S.
District Court in San Jose.

It is basically an updated version of a lawsuit filed in 2003.

The suit contends that the state, county and city have the right to
establish medical marijuana policies under the 10th Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution, which states "the powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

"Essentially, we're arguing that the federal government is
interfering with the city's and county's right to regulate the health
and welfare of its own citizenry," said Gerald Uelmen, law professor
at Santa Clara University and one of a string of attorney's working
for the plaintiffs.

Uelmen is joined by Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice as well as lawyers
from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Drug Policy Alliance,
the firm of Bingham McCutchen and Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone.

The suit also centers, in part, on the argument that a person has a
right to manage her or his illness and death.

"We're dealing with how do you convince the federal government the
harm they are creating is much worse than the harm they are trying to
prevent," said Valerie Corral, co-founder of WAMM.

The issue not in the suit is that of interstate commerce, which was
part of the original complaint. That concept led to an appeals court
ruling that individuals in states with medical marijuana laws may
supply for each other as long as money doesn't change hands and the
pot doesn't cross state lines.

Though an appeals court went along with that argument, it was later
rejected in June by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case known as Raich
v. Gonzales.

WAMM was joined by the city and county in filing the suit back in
2003 and inlcuded that argument as part of the suit, months after
federal agents raided the cooperative's Davenport garden and uprooted
167 plants. Corral and husband Mike, also a co-founder of the group,
were briefly jailed but have not been charged.

The suit seeks an injunction against future raids, as well as a
judicial declaration that medical marijuana use is necessary for the
sick plaintiffs and their caregivers to manage their disease and that
city or county employees are not subject to prosecution for helping
to implement local medical marijuana policies.

A call to the National Office of Drug Control Policy, also known as
the Drug Czar, in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned late
Tuesday afternoon.