APPEAL CONTINUES IN COUNTY'S MEDICAL MARIJUANA CASE

SAN DIEGO ---- San Diego County officials said last week that they
have filed an appeal to continue their efforts to overturn
California's voter-approved medical marijuana law ---- but judges
could take months, a year, or longer to issue a ruling.

Meanwhile, medical marijuana advocacy groups and patients offered a
variety of opinions on what effect the county's continuing challenge
was having locally and statewide.

Some said they thought this county's appeal was making it easier for
other counties to ignore state legislation ordering them to create
medical marijuana identification cards and registry systems.

But they also said they thought that the county's challenge was
having less of an effect than it had before a Superior Court judge in
December rejected the challenge, upholding the law that allows
seriously ill people to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation
to ease their pain.

However, a San Diego County medical marijuana patient, Wendy
Christakes, said the county's continuing challenge, and crackdown on
medical marijuana "dispensaries," was still generating local fallout.

Christakes is a 29-year-old mother who has used marijuana since 2003
to treat chronic pain from herniated discs and removal of a portion
of her backbone. She said local patients have been trying without
success to get San Diego city leaders to allow dispensaries where
patients can buy the drug.

Christakes said she was convinced that the county's challenge was
giving City Council members "an excuse to basically keep us on the
back burner."

Court rejection

San Diego County supervisors angered local medical marijuana patients
and state and national medical marijuana advocacy groups in December
2005 when they said they would sue to overturn Proposition 215 ----
the medical marijuana law that state voters passed with 56 percent of
the vote in 1996.

Supervisors said Prop. 215 is "bad law" and could increase drug
abuse. The county argued that Prop. 215 should be pre-empted by
federal law that says marijuana has no medicinal benefits and that
all use was illegal.

The federal government also states that synthetically created
tetrahydrocannibinol, the active ingredient in marijuana, has
medicinal value and can be prescribed by doctors.

The county's challenge has national implications, patients and
government officials say, because it marks the first time that any
county has sued to overturn any of the medical marijuana laws that
voters have approved in 11 states.

Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt ruled against the county in December.

But county officials filed a notice of appeal to the state's Fourth
Appellate District last month.

Officials said they don't know how long the appeal process will take.
Some have speculated six to 12 months, other legal experts say
appeals can take up to 18 months.

In the meantime, officials from some of the medical marijuana
advocacy groups that have been watching said the county's continuing
challenge could be giving other counties in the state a reason not to
implement Senate Bill 420 ---- the medical marijuana identification
card and registry law.

Prop. 215 urged the state and federal government to work out a way to
dispense medical marijuana to patients, but didn't fill out the
details. In 2003, state legislators punted the issue over to local
governments with SB 420, directing counties to create identification
cards that would make it easier for law enforcement officers to
identify patients.

Officials from the Marijuana Policy Project said last week that only
about half of California's 58 counties have implemented the
identification card program.

Chris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, a group that wants to get
the federal government to change its marijuana laws, said some of
those counties had delayed action because the state recently
threatened to greatly increase the proposed cost of the cards.

But Hermes said he also thought the county's challenge was playing a
part in some counties' delay.

"One of the ramifications of what San Diego is doing by suing the
state is to give political cover to other counties not to implement
the (identification card) program," he said.

San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn, who pushed hard for the county
to sue to overturn Prop. 215, agreed Friday.

"I think they're right," Horn said. "The fact that we're suing has
made it easier for other counties to say no."

Dispensary crackdown

Christakes, meanwhile, said one outcome of the county's continuing
challenge has been the squeeze on medical marijuana dispensaries.

In the wake of the county's decision to sue to overturn Prop. 215, it
appeared that the county district attorney's office and Sheriff's
Department became more aggressive in their posture toward the medical
marijuana issue as well.

In July 2006 ---- even though California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer said local police were not obligated to help enforce federal
laws that say all marijuana use is illegal ---- representatives of
the San Diego County district attorney's office and sheriff's
deputies joined raids on several dispensaries and arrested 10 people.

Deputy District Attorney Damon Mosler, the county's top drug
prosecutor, said this week that all local dispensaries had been shut down.

Mosler said undercover police officers ---- who were not medical
marijuana patients ---- were able to buy drugs at all of those
dispensaries. However, Mosler also said that the county's belief is
that the dispensaries are illegal even if they properly sell
marijuana to patients.

Hermes said that surveys suggest that the majority of medical
marijuana patients statewide rely upon dispensaries because they
would rather not, or can not, grow marijuana on their own.

Christakes said she won't grow her own marijuana because she has
small children at home. She said she also fears raids by federal drug agents.

Christakes said that it has been more difficult for her to get
marijuana since the county crackdown, even though California voters
have said seriously ill people should be able to get it.

She said she has had to go to the hospital more often to get morphine
and Demerol drips to relieve her pain, but that she has tried not to
use prescription medicines that she believes are more harmful than marijuana.

Christakes is angry that the county has continued its challenge.

"I just really think that it's just a waste of taxpayer money," she
said. "They're deciding to interpret the law, instead of following
the laws that voters and citizens approved."