LEGAL BATTLE FOR POT RENEWED

[Alfa]

LEGAL BATTLE FOR POT RENEWED


Woman Seeking Medicinal Use


An Oakland woman whose landmark medicinal marijuana case was rebuffed five months ago by the U.S. Supreme Court renewed her legal fight Wednesday by filing papers in a federal appeals court.


Lawyers for Angel Raich, 40, filed a brief in the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that federal efforts to restrict medicinal marijuana violate her rights to take the only medication that allows her to avoid intolerable pain and death.


The brief thus marks a new legal strategy for Raich, who previously had argued that federal drug laws traditionally focus on interstate commerce and thus did not apply to Raich's use of locally grown marijuana.


That argument was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling in June. The latest legal salvo by Raich also argues that prohibiting her from taking medically necessary cannabis would violate her due process rights, and that the federal Controlled Substances Act does not allow the federal government to prohibit medicinal use within a state that authorizes it.


California is one of 10 states with laws allowing the use of medicinal marijuana. Raich suffers from an inoperable brain tumor and a "wasting syndrome" that makes it extremely difficult for her to hold down her food. After trying 35 different pharmaceutical treatments, Raich said, she found that marijuana is the only drug she can tolerate that holds her seizures and other symptoms in check.


Raich's appeal will be heard by the same three-judge panel that upheld her right to use medicinal marijuana in 2003. That decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.