HEALING POT WINS A ROUND IN COURT

Federal Judge Sides With Movement for Its Medicinal Use

Adding another puff of hope to the medicinal marijuana movement, a
federal judge on Wednesday sided with a Santa Cruz cannabis
cooperative, issuing an order allowing pot to be grown for the sick
and dying without fear of a raid by federal drug agents.

San Jose U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel blocked federal agents from
enforcing drug laws against the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical
Marijuana in Davenport, prompting founders Valerie and Michael Corral
to immediately begin planting marijuana seeds for a fall harvest.

The cooperative, known as WAMM, has nearly 200 members who say they've
got a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana to relieve the painful
symptoms of diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

The ruling marked the first lower court interpretation of a recent
federal appeals court decision that crafted an exemption to federal
drug laws for seriously ill patients who grow their own marijuana or
get it for free. For the Corrals, Fogel's decision is just more
ammunition in the long-running conflict between medicinal marijuana
advocates and the federal government.

"We can grow marijuana in our collective's garden without any
reprisals from the federal government and without fear of them coming
in and putting guns to our heads," Corral said.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said there would be no
comment on the ruling until it is evaluated by government lawyers. The
Bush administration has argued that federal drug laws trump any state
efforts to permit the use, possession or sale of marijuana, including
California's 1996 voter-approved medicinal marijuana law.

The Corrals have been tied up in federal court since September 2002,
when drug agents seized more than 160 pot plants during a raid and
arrested the couple. The Corrals were never charged with any crime and
have been attempting to gain the right to resume providing marijuana
to their seriously ill members.

Fogel ruled against the Corrals last year. However, the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in December ruled 2-1 that prosecuting
medicinal marijuana users is unconstitutional if the cannabis isn't
sold or transported across state lines or used for non-medical
purposes. That case was brought by two seriously ill California women,
including one from the East Bay, who raised the argument as a way
around a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against medicinal marijuana
clubs.

Fogel found that the appellate decision shifts the law in favor of the
Corrals. In a letter earlier this month to Fogel, Justice Department
lawyers said they were preparing soon to appeal the 9th Circuit's
recent decision to the Supreme Court. Fogel acknowledged there remains
legal uncertainty over the issue, one reason he cited for at least
temporarily blocking the government from pressing criminal charges
against the Santa Cruz group.

The judge's order effectively enables WAMM to provide medicinal
marijuana while it presses its central legal argument against the
federal government -- that seriously or terminally ill patients have a
constitutional right to control their own pain relief that is exempt
from the drug laws.

Until or unless higher courts reverse Fogel, Corral said, "It's all
smiles and seeds."