Santa Cruz to Sue Over Pot Raids

City wants DEA to stop confiscating medical marijuana and arresting those who aid sick people.

By: Martha Mendoza

In hopes of stopping federal agents from again raiding a farm that provides marijuana to sick and dying people, Santa Cruz officials said they will file a lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Attorneys representing the city and county of Santa Cruz, as well as seven medical marijuana users, said Monday that they plan to file the papers Wednesday in federal court.

"This is a public-health issue to this community", Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone said Monday.

The lawsuit comes in response to a DEA raid last September at a small pot farm about 15 miles north of town. Agents uprooted about 165 plants and arrested owners Valerie and Michael Corral.

The raid outraged local officials, who have since sponsored a medical marijuana giveaway from the steps of City Hall. They also deputized the Corrals, who are the founders the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, allowing them to cultivate, distribute, and possess medical marijuana under a city ordinance.

Lawyers for Santa Cruz said the lawsuit will allege that the seven patient plaintiffs have had their medicine substantially decreased since the raid, and that WAMM has been unable to provide its patients with necessary medicine.

The lawsuit, to be filed as County of Santa Cruz vs. Ashcroft et al, asks the federal courts to enjoin the federal government from raiding the WAMM gardens in the future.

Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law. State law in California - as well as Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington - allows marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor's prescription.

Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, one of several attorneys representing the medical marijuana users, said this case could be an important step toward ending the legal contradiction between state and federal laws.