AN FRANCISCO, April 21 (AP) — A judge ordered the federal government on Wednesday not to raid or prosecute a California group that grows and distributes marijuana for its sick members.Posted on 04/21/2004 10:16:35 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
AN FRANCISCO, April 21 (AP) — A judge ordered the federal government on Wednesday not to raid or prosecute a California group that grows and distributes marijuana for its sick members.
The decision, by Judge Jeremy Fogel of Federal District Court in San Jose, was the first interpretation of an appeals court's ruling in December that federal prosecutions of medical marijuana users were unconstitutional if the marijuana was not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes.
Nine states, including California, allow medical marijuana use, but the Justice Department contends that federal drug laws take precedence.
Judge Fogel ruled that the government could not raid or prosecute the 250 members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which sued the government after the Drug Enforcement Administration raided its growing operation in Santa Cruz County in 2002 and seized 167 marijuana plants.
The group's director, Valerie Corral, said the group had been receiving and growing marijuana in secret since the raid for fear of being prosecuted. But with Judge Fogel's decision, the group plans to plant hundreds of plants on Ms. Corral's one-acre property in the Santa Cruz hills.
`You better believe it we're going to plant," said Ms. Corral, who uses marijuana to alleviate epileptic seizures.
A Justice Department spokesman, Charles Miller, said the government was reviewing the decision.
The marijuana group asked Judge Fogel to issue the injunction after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the government in December not to prosecute a sick Oakland woman who smoked marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.
The court, ruling 2 to 1, wrote that it was unconstitutional to use 1970 federal law to prosecute sick people with medical recommendations in states with medical marijuana laws..
"The intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician is, in fact, different in kind from drug trafficking," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the court.
The court added, "This limited use is clearly distinct from the broader illicit drug market, as well as any broader commercial market for medical marijuana, insofar as the medical marijuana at issue in this case is not intended for, nor does it enter, the stream of commerce."
That decision was a blow to the Justice Department, which argued that state medical marijuana laws were trumped by the Controlled Substances Act, which outlawed marijuana, heroin and other drugs nationwide. The department appealed that Ninth Circuit decision on Tuesday to the Supreme Court.
The Controlled Substances Act, as applied to the Santa Cruz cooperative, Judge Fogel wrote, "is an unconstitutional exercise" of federal intervention.
Judge Fogel's decision furthers the conflict between federal law and California's 1996 medical marijuana law, which allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation.
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State have laws similar to California's statute, which has been the focus of federal drug interdiction efforts. Agents have raided and shut down several clubs that grow medical marijuana.
The Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over all those states except Colorado and Maine.
We need judges to make the laws. Elected government is so passe /kidding
And this federal law is unconstitutional. The federal government doesn't get to just ignore the Constitution and enact any old laws it pleases.
Well, yeah, actually it does that all the time. But this is one of those all-too-rare instances in which the Courts tell Congress and the President, "No, you don't have the power to do that under the limited, enumerated powers granted to you under the Constitution."
Maybe it'll start a trend. We can only hope...
I wonder if this will be appealed. Justice Thomas might agree with Judge Fogel. Here are two excerpts from Justice Thomas' opinion in another case--
I write separately to emphasize that the Tenth Amendment affirms the undeniable notion that under our Constitution, the Federal Government is one of enumerated, hence limited, powers.
Although this Court has long interpreted the Constitution as ceding Congress extensive authority to regulate commerce (interstate or otherwise), I continue to believe that we must "temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence" and return to an interpretation better rooted in the Clause's original understanding.
-- Justice Thomas concurring, Printz vs United States, June 27, 1997.
Why? Because misery loves company?
And this judge has (to an extent) so ruled. Glad you're on board.
And so it was.
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