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Win for Collective Cultivation Case in Butte

Superior Court Rules in Favor of ASA Suit Challenging Ban on Patient Collectives

The legal team for Americans for Safe Access won the first round this month in their fight to protect the right of California patients to organize as collectives for cultivation.

A strongly worded ruling from Superior Court Judge Barbara Roberts on September 6 found that that seriously ill patients cultivating collectively "should not be required to risk criminal penalties and the stress and expense of a criminal trial in order to assert their rights."

The ruling came in response to an attempt by Butte County to stop the lawsuit ASA filed in May 2006 on behalf of a seven-person private patient collective.

"The court has sent a clear message to local law enforcement in California that they must respect the rights of patients to cultivate collectively." said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford.

At issue is a September 2005 warrantless search of a patient's home by the Butte County Sheriff's Department, during which David Williams, 54, was forced to uproot and destroy more than two dozen plants or face arrest and prosecution.
"We were told that it was not lawful to grow collectively for multiple patients," said Williams.

Judge Roberts' ruling also rejected Butte County's policy of requiring all members to physically participate in the cultivation, thereby allowing collective members to "contribute financially."

"The next step is to show that Williams was running a valid collective," said Elford. "At that point, the court is expected to make a final determination consistent with yesterday's ruling, which strongly vindicates the right of medical marijuana patients to associate together to grow the medicine they need."

ASA's intervention came after repeated reports of unlawful behavior by Butte County sheriffs and other law enforcement agencies.

For more information:
Butte County Superior Court ruling from September 6, 2007
ASA's lawsuit challenging Butte County's ban on collective cultivation

Activists Persuade Congress to Intervene with DEA

45 Reps Sign Letter Urging Research Cultivation License

ASA lobbying was part of a successful, many-month effort by medical marijuana activists to get Congress to support research into cannabis therapeutics. On September 19, a letter signed by 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives was delivered to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), urging the DEA to allow a UMass-Amherst professor to grow marijuana for approved research studies.

Over the past four months, ASA National Office staff, led by Governmental Affairs Director Caren Woodson, have been part of a campaign to get members of the House to sign the bi-partisan letter to DEA Adminstrator Karen Tandy. ASA members across the country contributed to a national grassroots campaign, contacting their representatives to ask them to sign on.

The letter, which was authored by U.S. Representatives John Olver (D-MA) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), asks Tandy to accept DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner's February 2007 Opinion and Recommended Ruling in support of the UMass-Amherst Medical Marijuana Research Production Facility. The law judge's ruling is non-binding and DEA has no deadline to decide whether to accept or reject it. The ruling is the result of legal action sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and other drug policy reform groups.

The DEA's handling of the UMass application to cultivate marijuana for research studies has already elicited congressional questioning. A DEA deputy administrator faced criticism on the subject during hearings this summer.

"The DEA is ignoring the vast scientific evidence that clearly shows medicinal use of marijuana benefits patients who are extremely ill," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who sits on one of the committees charged with oversight. "When it comes to providing the best treatment options to sick Americans, we should trust doctors and medical researchers and not federal bureaucrats."

Lyle Craker, who is the director of the Medicinal Plant Program in the Department of Plant, Insect and Soil Sciences at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, submitted his initial application to DEA in June 2001. Craker plans to cultivate marijuana that would be used in clinical trials to determine whether marijuana meets FDA standards for medical safety and efficacy.

Since 1968, the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse has maintained a monopoly on the supply of research marijuana. Judge Bittner found that NIDA has repeatedly refused to supply marijuana for FDA-approved studies that could develop marijuana as a prescription medicine. Federal law requires adequate competition in the production of such Schedule I drugs as marijuana, to ensure a supply for approved research.