CALIFORNIA CITY SUES OVER U.S. DRUG POLICY

In another act of defiance against national drug policy, the city and
county of Santa Cruz, Calif., today filed a lawsuit against federal
authorities for raiding a local farm that grows and distributes marijuana
to people who are seriously ill.

Other cities across California and some parts of the West also are
objecting to the federal government's crackdown on the use of medicinal
marijuana, but Santa Cruz is the first municipality seeking to challenge
those actions in court.

Last fall, most of Santa Cruz's elected leaders gathered on the steps of
City Hall and, in an act of protest against federal drug laws, gave
marijuana to people in pain from severe medical problems. City officials
also vowed to continue supporting groups that grow and distribute marijuana
for medicinal use.

"We cannot just stand by and watch the harassment of people who are sick
and dying," said Judy Appel, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit,
who include seven people who are either terminally ill or have chronic
medical conditions that they say marijuana helps relieve.

Voters in California and seven other western states allow marijuana to be
distributed to people who have a doctor's prescription for it. But the
Supreme Court ruled last year that federal law supercedes state law on the
matter and barred physicians from prescribing the drug to patients.

Federal action against distributors of medical marijuana is intensifying.
Earlier this year, a man who had been deputized by the city of Oakland to
grow the drug for sick people was convicted in federal court on felony
narcotics charges.