CALIF. LOCALE TO SUE FEDS OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California county and its major city plan to sue
the federal government on Wednesday to allow the use of medical marijuana in
a lawsuit they said will mark the first legal challenge over the issue
brought by a local government.

Plaintiffs, who include the city and county of Santa Cruz, south of San
Francisco, said on Monday they will seek a preliminary injunction in federal
court to allow a medical marijuana farm raided by the Drug Enforcement
Administration in Santa Cruz last year to reopen and sick patients to obtain
the drug. Use of marijuana for medical purposes is legal under state law but
illegal under federal law.

"It is pretty clear that the people in the state of California support the
use of medical marijuana," said Mardi Wormhoudt, a Santa Cruz County
Supervisor. "It is disturbing when the people in the state have
overwhelmingly expressed their support at the ballot the federal government
feels no right to uphold that."

Federal officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the
lawsuit plaintiffs plan to file in federal court in San Jose, California
later this week.

The lawsuit, which will name Attorney General John Ashcroft, Acting DEA
Administrator John Brown and Drug Czar John Walters, marks the latest battle
between California and the federal government over medical marijuana.

California is one of nine U.S. states where voters have passed laws allowing
doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients suffering from illnesses ranging
from AIDS and cancer to glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. Medical marijuana
proponents say the drug can help alleviate symptoms such as pain and nausea
for some sick patients.

But federal law enforcement authorities, bolstered by a 2001 U.S. Supreme
Court decision upholding the federal ban on medical marijuana, have taken a
far more severe view than their local counterparts in California and have
been cracking down on patient clubs centered around medicinal use of the
herb.

Plaintiffs say they hope their lawsuit also sparks a flood of similar
litigation in the medical marijuana movement, which gained strength in
California during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

"This issue will be fought out in the courts," Wormhoudt said. "If this
happens in many places, I believe it will begin to have a cumulative
effect."

RAID SPURS POT GIVEAWAY

The lawsuit revolves around a September raid in Santa Cruz where federal
authorities closed down a medical marijuana cooperative and arrested the
farm's owners. One of the owners was the woman who helped write the
trailblazing state law that legalized medicinal use of the drug.

That raid outraged many in the liberal beach community located about 72
miles south of San Francisco and spurred some local leaders to join a
protest on the steps of City Hall where sick patients received free medical
marijuana.

In another high-profile fight showing the split over medical marijuana,
federal prosecutors recently won a conviction on drug charges against
national medical marijuana movement guru Ed Rosenthal.

They did so even though state law deems Rosenthal's actions legal and the
city of Oakland had certified him to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Jurors in the case said later they would not have convicted Rosenthal, who
is appealing, if they had known he was growing medical marijuana.