MEDICAL POT USER SEEKS COURT'S OK

Attorneys for an Oakland woman filed a new brief Wednesday with a
federal appeals court seeking sanction for her use of marijuana to
treat her pain and illness.

Angel Raich, who suffers from numerous ailments including a brain
tumor, severe weight loss and chronic pain, sued in 2002, challenging
the federal government's constitutional power to regulate interstate
commerce as it extends to locally grown marijuana, supplied without
charge to patients whose use is permitted by state law.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Raich in June but sent the case
back for consideration of various issues to the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The appeals court had ruled in
Raich's favor on the broader question in 2003.

Raich's new brief, filed with the Ninth Circuit, claims protection
for her marijuana use under the Constitution's Fifth, Ninth, and
Tenth amendments. She argues that she has a fundamental liberty to
take the only medication that allows her to avoid intolerable pain
and death, and that prohibiting her from taking medically necessary
marijuana would violate the due process clause.

The brief also asserts that the federal Controlled Substances Act
does not allow the federal government to prohibit medical use within
a state that authorizes it -- as California does under Proposition
215, which voters approved in 1996.

The appeal no longer lists Raich's original co-plaintiff, Diane
Monson, who helped initiate the lawsuit after federal authorities
raided her home in Butte County looking for the pot she was growing
to treat back pain.