LEGAL BATTLE FOR POT RENEWED

Woman Seeking Medicinal Use

An Oakland woman whose landmark medicinal marijuana case was rebuffed
five months ago by the U.S. Supreme Court renewed her legal fight
Wednesday by filing papers in a federal appeals court.

Lawyers for Angel Raich, 40, filed a brief in the federal 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals arguing that federal efforts to restrict medicinal
marijuana violate her rights to take the only medication that allows
her to avoid intolerable pain and death.

The brief thus marks a new legal strategy for Raich, who previously
had argued that federal drug laws traditionally focus on interstate
commerce and thus did not apply to Raich's use of locally grown marijuana.

That argument was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling
in June. The latest legal salvo by Raich also argues that prohibiting
her from taking medically necessary cannabis would violate her due
process rights, and that the federal Controlled Substances Act does
not allow the federal government to prohibit medicinal use within a
state that authorizes it.

California is one of 10 states with laws allowing the use of
medicinal marijuana. Raich suffers from an inoperable brain tumor and
a "wasting syndrome" that makes it extremely difficult for her to
hold down her food. After trying 35 different pharmaceutical
treatments, Raich said, she found that marijuana is the only drug she
can tolerate that holds her seizures and other symptoms in check.

Raich's appeal will be heard by the same three-judge panel that
upheld her right to use medicinal marijuana in 2003. That decision
was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.