Several medical marijuana dispensaries were raided by federal and local officials in San Diego last week. Against this backdrop of fear and intimidation, drug policy reform groups have taken action to stand up for patients.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a motion on July 7 to intervene in San Diego's lawsuit against the state, which seeks to overturn California's medical marijuana law, Proposition 215.

Daniel Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, explained, "Our motion to intervene will allow the court to recognize the harm done to patients by the county's frivolous lawsuit." Patients are already in a state of fear and uncertainty about access to their medicine, and will be further hurt if Proposition 215 is overturned. 

The lawsuit, initiated by San Diego and joined later by San Bernardino and Merced counties, argues that federal laws prohibiting marijuana use invalidate state laws that permit qualified patients to use medical marijuana. The suit challenges California's laws permitting patients to use, and doctors to recommend, medical marijuana. It also challenges a law requiring the implementation of an identification card program to help protect legitimate patients from prosecution by local and state officials.

Abrahamson said, "We are confident the court will require the state's medical marijuana program to be implemented in San Diego, as required by law. Renegade politicians in San Diego are simply postponing the inevitable, while thousands of sick people suffer."

The groups that filed the motion maintain that states are free to implement medical marijuana policies of their own design, even though the federal government is free to enforce its own prohibition on medical marijuana. The California attorney general's office has taken the same stance on this issue.

The state attorney general will defend California's medical marijuana statutes, while the groups are intervening to assure adequate representation of those most directly impacted: medical marijuana patients, and their caregivers and doctors.