MEDICINAL MARIJUANA USERS SUE U.S. OFFICIALS

OAKLAND -- A new front opened Wednesday in the long-running battle to make
marijuana available for medical use as two patients sued Atty. Gen. John
Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, charging
that the federal government may not interfere in states where patients
legally are permitted to use marijuana as medicine.

Eight states--California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada
and Colorado--have laws allowing patients to use marijuana with a doctor's
recommendation. These laws conflict with federal law that classifies
marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive classification, and
mandates that it should be seized.

At issue is how much authority the Drug Enforcement Administration has over
state officials. After a DEA raid of a medical marijuana distribution club
in nearby Santa Cruz this summer, the question was informally debated in an
exchange of letters between California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and
Hutchinson. Defending the DEA's legal supremacy, Hutchinson noted that in
May 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the prohibitions of the Controlled
Substances Act "regardless of any `medical' justification under state law."

Speaking at a news conference at federal district court in Oakland,
plaintiff Angel McClary Raich of Oakland said that a nurse in 1996-97 had
suggested that she try marijuana to relieve her pain, nausea and wasting
syndrome. At the time, Raich was partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
"I was extremely offended," she recalled.

But after trying various narcotics and medications prescribed by her
doctor, Raich said she tried marijuana in late 1997 and found that it
controlled pain, nausea and weight loss. In 1999, she was able to walk
again but remains ill with an inoperable brain tumor and other ailments.

Smoking, eating or inhaling the vapors of the drug, Raich said she now uses
2.5 ounces of marijuana a week, or more than 8 pounds a year. She said
marijuana allows her to function and raise her two teenage children.

"The government has waged a civil war against sick, disabled and dying
Americans," Raich said. "If cannabis works for us, we should be able to
have that medicine."

The other plaintiffs are Diane Monson, 36, a bookkeeper who said she
suffers from chronic back pain, and two individuals named as John Doe No. 1
and John Doe No. 2. They are Raich's caregivers and grow marijuana for her.

Monson said she was following county and state law by growing six marijuana
plants in rural Oroville, Calif., for her personal medicinal use. Last
August, DEA agents raided her home, cut down the plants and seized them.
She was not charged with a crime.

Attorney Robert Raich, who married Angel McClary Raich two months ago, said
the federal government had overstepped its authority by interfering in an
activity that involves patients and substances solely within California.
"For the federal government to attack patients and caregivers for
activities that never cross state lines is an absolute violation of the
Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution," said Raich, who is representing
the plaintiffs.