MARIJUANA CASE DISMISSED

BARABOO - Earlier this week a Sauk County judge threw out a case against a
woman charged with marijuana possession because she had an out-of-state
prescription for the drug.

"I've been doing this for 17 years and this is the first such
prescription I've seen," said Assistant District Attorney Kevin
Calkins, who prosecuted the case.

Medical marijuana is illegal in Wisconsin, but statutes allow
possession where the patient has a valid prescription from a
practitioner licensed to prescribe the drug. Calkins said the
defendant in this case, Cheryl A. Lam, 53, of Sun Prairie, showed
proof of her prescription in court and Judge James Evenson dismissed
the case.

Calkins said he doubted whether the ruling, although unusual, would
affect future court cases. Legal precedent cannot be established at
the circuit court level, and his office has no plans to appeal and
move the case up in the courts, Calkins said.

Medical marijuana advocates place more importance on the ruling, said
Gary Storck, a spokesperson for the Madison chapters of Is My Medicine
Legal YET? and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws.

"I'm very excited by it," Storck said. "I think any time that a judge
rules that a person has the right to use their medicine in the state
of Wisconsin, it's significant."

According to court documents filed by her attorney, Lam had a medical
card signed by a California doctor licensed to prescribe marijuana as
medicine. California and 10 other states have laws allowing the use of
medical marijuana.

Authorities at Devil's Lake State Park arrested Lam July 31, according
to court documents, after they responded to a fight at her camp site
between her and her three sons. One of the sons told the officer he
had thrown a marijuana pipe into the woods, so another officer with a
drug-sniffing dog was dispatched to the scene.

After consulting with the officer, Lam turned over two plastic bags of
marijuana and a pipe. Lam had 3 grams in her possession.

Lam started using medical marijuana after she was bit by a Brown
Recluse spider in 1995, according to documents her lawyer filed. She
had lesions over her entire body and after trips to several
specialists still was not healed. At one point 85 percent of her flesh
had been eaten away, her lawyer claimed in the documents.

A Chinese medicine practitioner treated Lam with herbs, including
cannabis, and in 2000 she became a patient of California doctor Tod H.
Mikuriya, according to the documents. He prescribed her medical marijuana.