The San Diego County Board of Supervisors filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Diego on Jan. 20 to overturn Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, and Senate Bill 420, a law passed by the California Legislature in 2003 that requires county health departments to issue identification cards to medicinal marijuana users and maintain a database of such users.

California voters passed Prop. 215 in 1996, giving Californians suffering from serious illnesses the right to obtain and use marijuana for medicinal purposes with a physician’s recommendation. The physician must determine that the patient’s health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.

The act ensures that patients and their primary caregivers are not subject to criminal prosecution or sanction as long as permission is granted by their physicians, and protects physicians from criminal prosecution for recommending the use of marijuana as a treatment.

The county argued in its lawsuit that Prop. 215 and SB 420 should be unenforceable because both conflict with the federal law that bans marijuana possession and distribution. The lawsuit says federal statutes pre-empt state law.

In a 4-0 vote in January, Supervisors Bill Horn, Pam Slater-Price, Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox ordered county lawyers to sue the state, asking the court to overturn Prop. 215. Fourth District supervisor Ron Roberts was absent for the vote.

The board voted 3-2 in December to refuse to implement the state’s identification card program for medical marijuana users. Roberts and Cox voted in favor of the program.

Roberts’ chief of staff, Darren Pudgil, said Roberts has publicly voiced his opposition to the lawsuit.

“I honestly feel strongly that if people are suffering from terminal illnesses and other serious problems, that medical marijuana can be of use to them, and we ought to, in a professional way, make it available to them,” Roberts told the San Diego Union-Tribune on Jan. 25.

Board of Supervisors’ chair Bill Horn disagrees.

“Federal law makes the cultivation, distribution and use of marijuana for any purpose illegal,” Horn said in a statement. “The Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich has ruled the federal government has the power to arrest and prosecute patients and their suppliers, even if medical marijuana is permitted under state law.”

Horn referenced a 6-3 ruling by Supreme Court justices in June 2005 that said doctors can be blocked from prescribing marijuana for patients suffering from pain caused by cancer or other serious illnesses. Under federal law, marijuana possession is illegal.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, several scientific studies in the late ’70s and early ’80s showed marijuana’s value at reducing cancer patients’ nausea. The Drug Policy Alliance said marijuana can increase appetite, helping to normalize food intake and prevent dangerous weight loss that is particularly important for patients suffering from AIDS wasting syndrome.

Marijuana is also used medically by patients with epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, spinal cord injuries and other conditions characterized by muscle spasticity, seizures and severe chronic pain.

Lea Brooks of the state Department of Health Services told the Union Tribune on Jan. 21 that no other county has refused to comply with the registration program. Fifteen counties currently participate, and 779 identification cards have been issued to medical marijuana users in the state, she said.

That changed on Jan. 25, when the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, after a unanimous, closed-session vote, announced that they would join San Diego County in its lawsuit. San Bernardino County board chair Bill Postmus issued a statement that said the conflict between state and federal law must be resolved by the courts before the county feels it can move forward.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Safe Access and the Drug Policy Alliance said they would intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of medical marijuana patients and their doctors.

“The stakes are too high for medical marijuana patients to depend on Governor Schwarzenegger and the Department of Health Services to defend their interests in court,” said Allen Hopper, an attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project, in a statement released by the ACLU.

The three groups called the lawsuit “baseless,” and said they believe it will be thrown out of federal court because San Diego County has no standing to sue the state in federal court.

“The supervisors’ decision to continue with the suit shows blatant disregard for the law and the will of their constituents,” said Margaret Dooley of the Drug Policy Alliance. “We expect the court to dismiss their lawsuit in short order.”

The Marijuana Policy Project has moved forward with a term limits initiative as a means to get the San Diego Board of Supervisors to change its stance and drop the lawsuit. The ballot initiative would establish a two-term limit for supervisors and aims to replace all current board members.

Marijuana Policy Project executive director and founder Rob Kampia said the group is about to launch a petition drive to gain the necessary 67,000 signatures needed for the initiative to be placed on the November ballot.

Kampia said approved medicinal marijuana users have four options to obtain the drug: purchase from a criminal market, grow their own, have a caregiver grow it for them, or buy it from a medical marijuana dispensary.

“Those dispensaries are, in fact, legal under state law ever since [former Gov.] Gray Davis expanded the law in 2003, right before he left office,” Kampia said.

SB 420, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2004, allows patients to form cultivation “collectives” or “cooperatives” for the distribution of medicinal marijuana to those approved.

On Dec. 13, Drug Enforcement Agency agents raided 13 San Diego-area marijuana dispensaries and seized large quantities of the drug, along with computers and records.

According to an Associated Press article, authorities said the shops were selling marijuana to people who weren’t using it for medicinal purposes.

Steph Sherer of Americans for Safe Access told AP that the raids were outrageous, and a cowardly act from an administration that is out of touch with voters.

In addition to California, 10 other states have passed laws permitting marijuana use by patients with physician approval: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.