| Michael 2005-11-25, 5:56 pm |
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...BABADIGEST2.DTL
Medical pot user seeks court's OK
By Patrick Hoge
The San Francisco Chronicle, Page B - 5
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Attorneys for an Oakland woman filed a new brief
Wednesday with a federal appeals court seeking sanction
for her use of marijuana to treat her pain and illness.
Angel Raich, who suffers from numerous ailments including
a brain tumor, severe weight loss and chronic pain, sued
in 2002, challenging the federal government's
constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce as
it extends to locally grown marijuana, supplied without
charge to patients whose use is permitted by state law.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Raich in June but
sent the case back for consideration of various issues to
the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The appeals court had ruled in Raich's favor on the
broader question in 2003.
Raich's new brief, filed with the Ninth Circuit, claims
protection for her marijuana use under the Constitution's
Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth amendments. She argues that she
has a fundamental liberty to take the only medication
that allows her to avoid intolerable pain and death, and
that prohibiting her from taking medically necessary
marijuana would violate the due process clause.
The brief also asserts that the federal Controlled
Substances Act does not allow the federal government to
prohibit medical use within a state that authorizes it --
as California does under Proposition 215, which voters
approved in 1996.
The appeal no longer lists Raich's original co-plaintiff,
Diane Monson, who helped initiate the lawsuit after
federal authorities raided her home in Butte County
looking for the pot she was growing to treat back pain.
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