The U.S. Supreme Court today announced it will take up a landmark California case that recently established a medical exception to the federal prohibition on marijuana. In December 2003, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled in the case of two California women and their caregivers that federal prosecutions of many medical marijuana patients and their caregivers are unconstitutional. That precedent has already affected many other medical marijuana cases.
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SAN FRANCISCO – A Chico man will be before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco this morning, arguing that his 2002 conviction for conspiring to grow medical marijuana was not only unconstitutional but based on misconduct by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento. Bryan James Epis, 37, was the first person associated with a California medical marijuana dispensary to be tried under federal law. He is currently serving a mandatory ten-year sentence in federal prison.
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Since medical marijuana patient and caregiver Bryan Epis was sentenced in October 2002 to a mandatory minimum of ten years in prison, his case has become the prime example of how far – and how wrong – the federal government can go in prosecuting its war on drugs. The injustice of his sentence now gets routine mention in editorials, columns and letters-to-the-editor, and his name has become a rallying cry for a movement that is gaining momentum.
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LOS ANGELES – A South Central grandmother who served in Vietnam is in court Wednesday, suing the Los Angeles Police Department for harassment after they destroyed her supply of medical marijuana four years in a row.
Sister Somayah Kambui appears before the Hon. Robert Hess to argue the merits of the 15 causes of action she is bringing against the department, which she says has been maliciously targeting her. She is suing for the return of her seized property and punitive damages, as well as for injunctive and declaratory relief.
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On the anniversary of a landmark federal sentencing, medical marijuana patients and activists across the country are rallying at the offices of members of Congress Friday, demanding an end to federal prosecutions.
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San Francisco (Tuesday, May 18, 2004) – The medical cannabis patients who won a landmark case against John Ashcroft last December today got the legal protection they sought.
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Los Angeles – Successfully defending medical marijuana patients in court will be the focus of a series of legal trainings kicking off in Los Angeles tomorrow. Public defenders and court-appointed attorneys will be on hand at the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors building tomorrow evening at 5:30pm for the first of 24 sessions presented by the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA).
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San Francisco – The government wants to roll back the decision by a federal appeals court that the prohibition on marijuana is unconstitutional when used to prosecute people who use it medicinally. Tuesday the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in Raich vs. Ashcroft, which found that the federal ban does not apply to those who use cannabis for medical purposes on their doctors' advice, obtain the medicine without buying it, and get it within their state's borders.
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