The Drug Policy Alliance, together with the prestigious law firm Bingham McCutchen, criminal defense attorney Gerald Uelmen, and Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice, is representing the city and county of Santa Cruz, seven terminally and chronically ill patients and the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) in an unprecedented lawsuit against the federal government. The suit, Santa Cruz v. Ashcroft, aims to halt the Bush Administration’s ongoing interference with state medical marijuana laws.

The suit was prompted by a raid that received national attention September 2002, in which armed agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stormed WAMM, terrorizing residents and patients. WAMM, which provides medical marijuana under California’s 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215), was shut down and several members were detained.

This case is the first in which a public entity sued the federal government on behalf of patients who need medical marijuana.  The case also focuses on the constitutional right of chronically and terminally ill patients to control the circumstances of their own pain relief and ultimately their deaths - a right recognized by the Supreme Court. WAMM itself is also unique. Unlike other medical marijuana cooperatives, it doubles as a hospice and does not charge money for its services.

The lawsuit was filed against Attorney General John Ashcroft, DEA Acting Administrator John Brown, and Drug Czar John Walters. The seven patient-plaintiffs in the lawsuit (one of whom passed away earlier this year)  represent the interests of approximately 200 other patients, and their caregivers that make up the WAMM collective. They suffer from HIV/AIDS, cancer, post-polio syndrome, epilepsy, and chronic pain. These patients use medical marijuana to relieve such symptoms as: nausea and vomiting, wasting syndrome, neuropathy, and severe and chronic pain.

In August 2003, San Jose federal district court judge Jeremy Fogel, citing federal law, dismissed the lawsuit but allowed WAMM the opportunity to amend their claims. In December 2003 and again in February 2004, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers in Raich v. Ashcroft, a case funded in part by the Drug Policy Alliance. Per the court’s decision in Raich patients and their caregivers can, with a physician's recommendation, continue to legally cultivate and use the drug without federal interference, as long as they do so without engaging in any "commerce" and within state borders.

During the Raich case, the Ninth Circuit questioned Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel’s decision to dismiss the County and City of Santa Cruz et.al. v. Ashcroft case. In March 2004 the Alliance and our co-counsel for the WAMM plaintiffs requested that the judge reconsider its ruling and re-hear the case.

Judge Fogel reconsidered the case based on the December 2003 decision in Raich v. Ashcroft and on April 21, 2004 granted a preliminary injunction denying the government's motion to dismiss the WAMM members' complaint. Judge Fogel’s decision protects the more than 200 seriously ill WAMM members while their lawsuit is pending, and allows the collective to resume cultivation.

On April 20, 2004 Attorney General John Ashcroft filed a Petition for Certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit Court's decision on Raich.  The attorneys representing the defendants in the Raich case asked the Supreme Court to not grant certiorari. On June 28 of 2004 the United States Supreme Court announced that they would consider the case in the upcoming fall term.

In a matter related to Santa Cruz v. Ashcroft on September 24, 2002, WAMM and Valerie and Michael Corral, who head the collective, filed a motion asking the court to order the federal government to return more than 160 marijuana plants and other property seized by federal agents in the September 5, 2002 raid.   U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel denied the motion to return the property December 3, 2002, and the decision was appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This action is separate from their civil rights lawsuit against the government, under which the federal government was recently prohibited from raiding WAMM or its members.

On June 18, 2004, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the motion for return of property back to Judge Fogel asking his court to reconsider the case in light of the Raich decision.  The 9th Circuit Court asked Judge Fogel’s District Court to reconsider the case after the Supreme Court “has completed its action in Raich.”

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