CONGRESSMEN CO-SPONSOR BILL TO LEGALIZE NEED FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

In the wake of federal agents' widely publicized raid on a Santa Cruz-area
medical marijuana operation, U.S. Rep. Sam Farr is introducing a bill
Thursday to legalize medical need as a valid defense in federal prosecutions.

The bill's co-sponsors are two congressmen rarely found on the same side of
an issue -- Massachusetts liberal Democrat Barney Frank and Huntington
Beach conservative Republican Dana Rohrabacher.

The bill by Farr, a Carmel Democrat, applies only to federal trials in
states that have passed laws allowing the distribution and use of
marijuana, under a doctor's prescription, for medical use.

Frank also is backing a similar bill that would simply allow state law to
trump federal law.

Among those expected to attend a press conference on the bill Thursday are
Valerie Corral, who with her husband Michael Corral was arrested Sept. 5 by
federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents. The DEA raided their
marijuana farm near Davenport and confiscated their crop, which they
distribute free to the sick.

The Santa Cruz City Council later staged a widely publicized pot
distribution ceremony on the steps of city hall, and even deputized the
Corrals.

"No one in the United States is allowed to distribute illegal drugs --
period," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman, in December. But under the
Farr and Frank bills, that would no longer be true in some states.

Rohrabacher declined to talk about the bill. His press secretary, Aaron
Lewis, said it was a state's-rights issue, although Rohrabacher also has a
personal slant, said Lewis.

"His mother was very ill at one time," and while she neither sought nor
used marijuana for her nausea and pain, said Lewis, she "might have been
able to benefit from it" had it been available.

Massachusetts has no medical marijuana law.