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ReverendCaveGrower
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 220
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 Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:39 am Post subject: SAN DIEGO Supervisors challenge Prop. 215 |
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/21/BAGKHGQM1C1.DTL
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SAN DIEGO
Supervisors challenge Prop. 215
County suit also takes on medical pot ID card law
- Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 21, 2006
California's medical marijuana law, battered in court by the Bush administration, faced a legal challenge from a new source Friday -- San Diego County supervisors, who sued to overturn Proposition 215 and a law requiring counties to issue identification cards to users of medicinal pot.
Both the 1996 voter initiative and the identity-card law, which took effect last year, should be ruled unenforceable because they conflict with the federal law banning marijuana possession and distribution, the county argued in a suit filed in federal court in San Diego.
"The Board of Supervisors does not believe it should be mandated to issue cards relating to the medical use of marijuana when federal law said that's a crime,'' County Counsel John Sansone said in an interview after filing the suit. In order to contest the card requirement, he said, the county also had to challenge Prop. 215, the basis of the new law.
The lawsuit was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year allowing the federal government to prosecute patients in California and the 10 other states that allow medical use of marijuana. The court had ruled earlier that the federal government could shut down dispensaries that supplied marijuana to California patients. Both cases were victories for the Bush administration.
Last year's ruling, in a suit by patients from Oakland and Butte County, upheld the enforcement of federal drug laws against users of marijuana grown and distributed entirely within a state. But it did not overturn Prop. 215's protections of patients from local prosecution. The San Diego suit, if it succeeded, would entirely invalidate the initiative.
Prop. 215 allows patients to obtain and use marijuana, with their doctors' recommendation, without being charged under state drug laws. Legislation passed in 2003 and implemented last summer requires counties to provide state-issued ID cards to patients and their caregivers, who can show the cards to police as evidence of physicians' approval.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Health Services Department put the ID card program into effect after getting an opinion from Attorney General Bill Lockyer that the Supreme Court ruling did not overturn Prop. 215 or expose county or state officials to federal prosecution for distributing the cards. No county besides San Diego has objected to the requirement, the department said Friday.
Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for Lockyer, criticized the county's lawsuit, saying that not even the federal government has tried to knock Prop. 215 off the books.
"Since 1996 there's been a well-settled understanding between state and federal law enforcement agencies that, due to the contradiction between state and federal law, the feds will continue to enforce their laws and the state will continue to enforce ours,'' Barankin said.
The American Civil Liberties Union also objected to the suit and said it would seek to intervene Monday on behalf of patients.
Although the U.S. Constitution decrees that federal law overrides conflicting state laws, "there's no requirement that states make illegal all conduct that the federal government has made illegal,'' said ACLU attorney Allen Hopper.
Noting that most drug prosecutions take place at the state and local levels, he said the federal narcotics law "contemplates a role for the states to play.''
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfhronicle.com.
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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/21/BAGKHGQM1C1.DTL |
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DdC
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 29 Dec 2003
Posts: 451
Location: Santa Cruz Cannafornia
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:29 am Post subject: Unkle Scams D.E.Ago |
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ACLU To Protest County's Marijuana Lawsuit By Gig Conaughton
Source: North County Times January 23, 2006 San Diego, CA
Several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, plan to demand today that county supervisors drop their legal challenge of California's 9-year-old medical marijuana law.
Kevin Keenan, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties, said the groups plan to petition county supervisors to start issuing identification cards and registering medical marijuana users ---- actions county supervisors already defied when ordered by the state.
Continued... http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21511.shtml
There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
-- Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged (1957)
Protest Massive DEAth Raids in San DEAgo!
Officially GOPerverted
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