Posted on 09/16/2006 1:26:50 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN DIEGO - This seaside city was a bystander as liberal strongholds like San Francisco and Santa Cruz created identification cards for sick patients who use marijuana and wrote regulations to permit storefront pot dispensaries.
Now, 10 years after Californians voted to decriminalize marijuana for medical purposes, conservative San Diego County is leading a backlash against the groundbreaking law.
The county is challenging California's medical marijuana law in state court, saying it should not be required to comply with a state law directing counties to issue ID cards to users. At the same time, local police, working with federal agents, have shuttered all of the nearly 30 marijuana dispensaries in the county.
San Diego's legal showdown pits state laws that permit marijuana use for medical reasons against federal laws that prohibit the drug. At stake: California's decade-old law and the industry it spawned, with potentially far-reaching consequences for other states.
"This is the first time that a county has said that the state is forcing them to do something they don't want to do," said Anjuli Verma, director of advocacy for the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If they prevail, it will set a precedent that basically means medical marijuana laws are over."
Since California's Compassionate Use Act was passed in 1996, 10 other states - Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - have passed laws protecting qualified patients from prosecution. Voters in South Dakota decide a medical marijuana ballot measure in November.
California's law allows people suffering AIDS, cancer, anorexia, chronic pain, arthritis and migraine and "any other illness for which marijuana provides relief" to grow or possess small amounts of marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.
In 2003, the California Legislature amended the 1996 bill to direct county health departments to issue ID cards to medical marijuana users.
Counties, which did not receive money to fulfill the requirement, have been slow to issue ID cards, but San Diego was the first to refuse on legal grounds. Under threat of a lawsuit from the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the county struck first and sued the organization - and the state.
"We're trying to get the court to tell the state they've gone too far in telling the counties to do something that facilitates the ability of a person to break federal law," said John Sansone, San Diego's county counsel.
The state attorney general contends in court filings that California is entitled to pass its own state drug laws and legislate programs relating to the use of medical marijuana.
Two other California counties, San Bernardino and Merced, have joined as plaintiffs in the case, which is scheduled to be heard in November in San Diego Superior Court.
San Diego's board of supervisors entered the legal fray shortly after dispensaries with names like Legal Ease, Holistic Healers and Chronic Care Co-op began popping up in coastal enclaves, thanks to the 2003 law, which created a legal framework for the dispensaries.
California has an estimated 200 storefronts that serve about 200,000 people, according to Americans for Safe Access, a group that advocates medical marijuana laws. San Francisco, Berkeley and Los Angeles have passed guidelines regulating the shops.
San Diego prosecutors say neighbors complained about one store in the summer of 2005, prompting an investigation that culminated in joint Drug Enforcement Administration and local police raids in July.
Fifteen operators were charged with illegally selling the drug for recreational use to people who are not ill - including one undercover agent who prosecutors say got a doctor to give him a medical marijuana recommendation for his dog.
A lawyer for one of the men, Stephen Harding, who ran Native Sun Dispensary, expressed dismay at the charges.
"These guys were complying with the regulations as they've been laid out," said Jan Ronis. "You have people relying on what seems to be guidance from the state and then the county shoots it down. It's really frustrating."
The remaining stores and delivery services in the county closed after receiving phone calls and visits from law enforcement agents warning that they and their landlords may be prosecuted.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said the state law does not require local authorities to permit marijuana storefronts.
"It's the tolerance level in the community that rules in the end," she said. "I think in Northern California they're much more tolerant than in this part of Southern California."
Like that's going to stand up in court.
Lol!
How can you call this a backlash when 67% of San Diego voters support medical marijuana?
.
11 states vs the unconstitutional federal laws. This is one of those instances where the people are clearly exercising their individual, inherent rights, regardless of what the feds say.
As we all know, the feds realized an 18th amendment was required in order to prohibit alcohol, and even then, juries would refuse to find folks guilty, based on their view that the law infringed on our individual, inherent rights.
They can regulate interstate commerce as much as they want, but regulation != prohibition. If they want to impose taxes, they can do so, but in no way, *ever*, have we given our federal government the privilege of using insane taxing schemes for prohibition (i.e., in order to possess you need a tax stamp, and btw, we'll forget to print any tax stamps). 11 states currently agree with that, and it would be interesting to see the feds go into each state and arrest all of the medical marijuana users.
What's further interesting is the vigilante mentality exhibited by law enforcement in these states. Alot of them support their own state's laws, but you still continue to hear about those law enforcement folks who disagree with their own state laws, and instead want to support the unconstitutional federal laws.
Recently, in Oregon, the county law enforcement tried to prevent a medical marijuana user from renewing his CCW permit. Thank God the judge was a law abiding citizen, and allowed the patient to renew his CCW.
Ideally, the state/local police would, via force if necessary, prevent any federal agents from even getting near the law abiding citizens of those states.
I'm not asserting this "weed" should have special treatment. I was asserting specifically the lack of privileges our federal government has when it comes to prohibiting what we can, and can't put into our bodies.
I would bet alot of folks would think the best part of medical marijuana, is that you don't have to give *any* money to the pharmaceutical companies. They're rich enough as it is, and I honestly can't think of an easier plant to grow than marijuana. You simply throw a seed in dirt, and it grows. No drug companies involved, no profit made from *anyone*, just folks using medical marijuana to alleviate their pain. It doesn't bother me at all that folks use that, rather than paying outrageous prices for other pain medication with a shitload more side effects.
After lots of time and research, one has to seriously question why, out of all of the medicine in the entire world, this one particular weed *has* gotten special treatment...from our government. They've fought tooth and nail to keep it prohibited, and if you do the proper research, you can easily see the shadiness involved in that.
It's none of my business if my neighbor wants to use medical marijuana for his ailments. Or the guy across town. Or the guy on the other side of the country. It's simply none of my business, and the government tries to make it my business by taking a shitload of my taxes, without even coming close to accomplishing their goal, which is unattainable.
There is a reason why people should not have access to powerful addictive drugs even if you can grow yer own.
Pot, valium or whatever. A proper doctor needs to be involved in that loop and have the power to control the dosage to patients.
Doc sez smoke a dooobie doesnt cut it with me.
Thats my opinion.
Costs of medicines is another issue entirely.
Article VI, Section 2 (Supremacy Clause) of the U.S. Constitution says that federal law trumps state law. The public officials of those 11 states should be charged with sedition, tried, found guilty, and jailed.
Furthermore, Proposition 215 does not allow for the sale of medical marijuana. It may be grown by a caregiver for a patient, but not sold to them. Store owners should be charged with violating both state AND federal law.
"As we all know, the feds realized an 18th amendment was required ..."
No, we don't know that at all. The 18th was desired, not required.
"but regulation != prohibition"
Did you mean, "but regulation ¹ prohibition"? Darn, wrong again. You're two for two.
The definition of "to regulate" includes "to prohibit. That was decided in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824 ("The power of a sovereign state over commerce, therefore, amounts to nothing more than a power to limit and restrain it at pleasure").
You'd think medical marijuana was some wonder drug for which we need to make exceptions. It cures no illness or disease. Medical marijuana is, at best, a poor substitute for dozens of other FDA approved drugs that have been on the market for years.
I'm with you -- treat it as we would any other prescription drug. This would include drug trials, peer-reviewed studies, verifiable reports, FDA approval, drug interaction reports, recommended dosages, etc. A licensed doctor writes a prescription (not a recommendation) which is then filled by a licensed pharmacy.
We're the most medically advanced nation in the world. We don't need some Clan of the Cave Bear approach to medicine with people smoking herbs and drinking bark tea for their illnesses.
If the feds overstep their authority and pass unconstitutional legislation, the states are not supposed to follow that legislation until the feds get it right.
I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that the 18th amendment wasn't required. It was required, but again, luckily, juries at the time *knew* they were also allowed to decide for themselves if laws were aligned with the Constitution or not.
Even moving into the 1930's, you can see how the government still *knew* it did not have the privilege to legislate against the possession of marijuana. It *simply* did not have the privilege, so they devised a taxing scheme where in order to possess marijuana, you needed a tax stamp. What was the catch ? They simply, and so creatively decided not to print up any tax stamps.
That shady stuff doesn't fly in a Free Republic. I could see a controlling democrat wanting to inflict their will on your freedom, but I'm surprised to see that sort of nonsense here at freerepublic.com.
It will take a jury who is allowed to hear about the existence of our Constitution by a good judge in order for these unconstitutional laws to be overturned. There is no chance of our Congress getting it right, nor SCOTUS. Until then, again, the state police of each of those 11 states should be protecting its law abiding citizens from the feds. Rather than them turning to vigilante justice.
The only time I ever smoked the stuff I fell in love with a turntable.
Ping to Article.
That's exactly what they are.
Ibuprofen is better as well as curcumin. Both are cheaper and not addictive.
Marinol may be a good drug for some ailments, but smoked pot is not good medicine in any case.
A tiny glimmer of reason from rp. Now can rp defend why the existing FedGuv overseers of the scant half handful of pot testing programs in the US, will not allow use of the more concentrated pot species. Maybe they're afraid that it will WORK BETTER than the stuff that's 99% trash?
Smoked pot, like chemotherapy drugs, are a choice of one possible harm over a worse harm.
And that's all they are.
"Medical" marijuana is a fraud designed to make marijuana legal for "recreational" (should really be "destructional") use. It's pushed by rich far left socialists like George Soros (look him up lurkers) and rich socialist potheads like Peter Lewis (look him up lurkers).
Those addicted to pot and the clueless who don't know any better are drawn to this leftist propaganda like moths to a flame.
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