June 6 - 16, 2005
Marijuana
Patients Remain Defiant
By
Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
Sacramento, Calif. --
Californians who use medical marijuana remained defiant Monday in the face of a
Supreme Court decision that allows the federal government to prosecute patients
who use the drug with a doctor's recommendation.
The decision caused ripples
across the state, the first in the nation to approve medical marijuana with
passage of Proposition 215 in 1996.
Few expected to see federal drug
authorities renew an aggressive war on medical marijuana in the Golden State.
"This would be like the Oakland Police Department focusing on busting
jaywalkers," said Steph Sherer of Americans for Safe Access, a medical
marijuana advocacy group.
Indeed, federal officials were
quick to say after Monday's decision that they did not expect to begin routine
prosecutions of individual marijuana users.
But advocates of medical
marijuana, and some patients, expressed worry about what might happen to the
organizations that have sprung up to distribute the drug in the state. The
court victory might embolden federal prosecutors to go after such groups, they
said.
Dr. Frank Lucido, a Berkeley
family practitioner who specializes in medical marijuana recommendations,
predicted the federal government might raid a few "high-profile clubs,
probably those with lower standards."
California has about 120 medical
marijuana cooperatives. An additional 300 organizations are scattered around
the nation, mostly in the nine other states with laws legalizing the herb with
a doctor's recommendation, Sherer said.
Valerie Corral, founder of a
Santa
Cruz medical marijuana collective known as
WAMM, said the ruling will mean the end of the group's wind-swept communal
garden up the coast. Federal agents raided the garden in 2002.
After that raid, outraged Santa
Cruz officials let ill and infirm members of the collective ceremoniously
distribute medical marijuana on the steps of City Hall. Corral said the group,
which has seen 155 members die of AIDS, cancer and other illnesses over a dozen
years of operation, will split up the responsibility of growing marijuana among
its members.
"It's not as if
this decision wipes out cancer and ends AIDS and everyone in a wheelchair can
now get up and dance," Corral said. "Where are people supposed to go
if we shut down?"
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calpot7jun07,1,739323.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
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