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Medical Marijuana v. Asscroft

Leave Medical Marijuana Group Alone, Judge Tells Government - NYT
A judge ordered the federal government on Wednesday not to raid or prosecute a California group that grows and distributes marijuana for its sick members.

A judge ordered the federal government on Wednesday not to raid or prosecute a California group that grows and distributes marijuana for its sick members.

The decision, by Judge Jeremy Fogel of Federal District Court in San Jose, was the first interpretation of an appeals court's ruling in December that federal prosecutions of medical marijuana users were unconstitutional if the marijuana was not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes.
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Judge Fogel ruled that the government could not raid or prosecute the 250 members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which sued the government after the Drug Enforcement Administration raided its growing operation in Santa Cruz County in 2002 and seized 167 marijuana plants.

The group's director, Valerie Corral, said the group had been receiving and growing marijuana in secret since the raid for fear of being prosecuted. But with Judge Fogel's decision, the group plans to plant hundreds of plants on Ms. Corral's one-acre property in the Santa Cruz hills.

`You better believe it we're going to plant," said Ms. Corral, who uses marijuana to alleviate epileptic seizures.

Judge Fogel: word of unsolicited advice, don't fly small planes anywhere for a few more months (when the reThuglicans are thrown out of office next November). If in doubt, review the death of Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan, among others.

Now playing in iTunes: Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love, from the album Charles Mingus - Changes One by Mingus, Charles (released 1974)