Medical Pot Parade Set for July 16

By Brian Seals, Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz -- Members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana plan a July 16 march through downtown Santa Cruz - while carrying some pot plants. The group hopes to attract 1,000 like-minded supporters to participate in the noon march down Pacific Avenue as a protest against an adverse U.S. Supreme Court ruling and recent raids of medical marijuana operations in Northern California.

WAMM wants to make the statement that people who use marijuana as medicine have legitimate health reasons, they are not just a bunch of potheads and the general public supports the use of marijuana as medicine.

The "solemn event," added WAMM co-founder Valerie Corral, will also commemorate 154 members who have died since the group's inception.

Whether the group will be allowed to carry plants will be part of its parade permit review, which is still in the process, said Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Kevin Vogel.

The march comes at a time when the federal government has stepped up raids on medical marijuana operations in California. Drug Enforcement Administration agents recently raided three pot clubs and more than 20 homes and businesses in San Francisco, saying they were fronts for illegal drug operations, and arrested a Sacramento area couple on marijuana-related charges.

Those raids followed a June 6 Supreme Court ruling that held federal drug laws supersede state medical marijuana laws.

A DEA spokesperson wouldn't discuss any potential interest from the agency in the march.

WAMM has made public statements in the past. Following a September 2002 raid on its Davenport garden, the group conducted a medical pot handout to about a dozen of its patients on the steps of Santa Cruz City Hall. For the past two years, it has held a family day picnic in August at San Lorenzo Park.

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Author: Brian Seals, Staff Writer
Published: July 1, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: editorial@santa-cruz.com
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20924.shtml

 

By Brian Seals, Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz -- Organizers of a medical marijuana march planned Saturday in downtown Santa Cruz promise a bit of festivity and a bit of reverence for their deceased colleagues. And, they hope to make a social and political statement. But as members and friends of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana wage a public-relations battle, attorneys continue to craft a legal war strategy behind the public limelight.

Far from going into seclusion in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling June 6 that dealt state medical pot laws a setback, WAMM is continuing a very public battle.

"Our hope is we can turn out thousands of people" for the parade, WAMM co-founder Valerie Corral said from the group's Westside office. "We want to demonstrate to the federal government the people of this community support medical marijuana."

About 150 members of the cooperative plan to march through downtown starting at noon Saturday, with participants toting about 25 live marijuana plants.

Corral said she wants to show the compassionate side of the issue.

"We want to assist each other," Corral said. "This is America at its best, people helping people."

Medical marijuana users say they need the drug for a variety of ills, such as relieving pain without side effects of other drugs, or increasing an appetite depressed by pharmaceuticals.

But federal drug-policy officials say no statement needs to be made. The federal Office of Drug Control Policy considers pot the same as other illicit drugs, a stance only reinforced by this summer's Supreme Court ruling.

The ruling does not overturn laws in California and 10 other states that allow medical use of marijuana, but those who use marijuana as a medical treatment risk legal action by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration or other federal agencies.

"Marijuana is a serious drug of abuse," said spokesman Tom Riley from Washington, D.C. "It is a more dangerous drug than many people realize."

Riley said medical marijuana advocates are seeking to make medical policy out of popular opinion, rather than science and government approval that rules the use of other pharmaceutical drugs.

Moreover, he said, while some people are using pot to relieve genuine suffering, medical pot policies are being abused by people seeking wholesale legalization.

While WAMM members plan parade logistics, attorneys working with the group are plotting courtroom strategy.

The Supreme Court ruling gutted some of the group's legal basis for continuing its work unfettered, but WAMM has more legal ammo, said Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice.

The ruling overturned a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision in 2003 that allowed medical marijuana use as long as no money changed hands and the marijuana crossed no state lines. That case brought a states' rights versus federal rights aspect to the issue.

The Raich case, brought by two Northern California women, Angel Raich and Diane Monson, challenged the constitutionality of the federal government's ban on personal use and cultivation of marijuana for medicine under California law.

Similarly, WAMM's case centered on the interstate commerce clause of the constitution.

While the appeals court ruling was in place, WAMM secured an injunction protecting its marijuana gardens from future raids by federal agencies, as occurred in September 2002.

But the 6-3 Supreme Court decision in the Raich case settled that aspect.

However, WAMM plans to argue in U.S. District Court another component of its case: Its rights are being violated under "due process" provisions of the U.S. Constitution, Rice said.

The approach will center on the concept of "substantive" due process in the U.S. Constitution, he said. That pertains to rights that aren't set forth explicitly in the Constitution, such as alleviating pain.

Using marijuana to save one's life or help one live it more fully would fall under that concept, WAMM lawyers would argue.

"We think we have a winning argument that an attempt to stop access to marijuana is an infringement on a constitutional substantive due process right to ameliorate pain," Rice said.

WAMM's legal team includes Rice, a defense lawyer, Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen and lawyers from the San Francisco firm of Bingham McCutchen.

The attorneys have been ordered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to file a brief in U.S. District Court in San Jose by Aug. 2. The U.S. Attorney's Office has a Sept. 2 deadline to respond, Rice said.

As for this Saturday's parade, WAMM still enjoys protections of an injunction granted in April 2004, though that will expire as a result of the Supreme Court ruling.

WAMM, joined by the county and city of Santa Cruz, sued then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003, seeking relief on behalf of terminally ill patients who are members of the cooperative.

While it won the injunction in 2004, the case has been on hold while the Raich case was decided.

Complete Title: Medical Pot Parade To Put Festive Face on Ongoing, Hard-Fought Battle




Related Article:

Advocate Group Began With Wreck, Court Case

Brian Seals, Staff Writer

Santa Cruz -- These days the Santa Cruz-based the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana is an icon of an organization in the world of medical pot.

That wasn't always the case.

The group's origins are linked to a couple of occurrences.

Back in 1973 co-founder Valerie Corral was in a car accident that left her epileptic and prone to seizures. Years of traditional therapy only put her in a stupor.

One day husband Mike, a WAMM co-founder, read an article in a medical journal about marijuana's potential for relieving the type of seizures affecting Valerie.

Within a few years, she had eschewed traditional pharmaceuticals in favor of marijuana as treatment.

That set into motion the creation of WAMM, which predates California's 1996 passage of Proposition 215, the ballot measure that allows medical marijuana use.

In the early 1990s, the Corrals were busted by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office and state agents on marijuana charges. Charges against Valerie Corral were later dropped on a medical-necessity defense.

The seed was sown, so to speak, for a locally based movement.

Like-minded people banded together to form the cooperative that allows sick folks to share marijuana with each other.

Now, rather than persecution and prosecution by local authorities, the group goes about its core mission and, at times quite publicly, advocates for medical pot policies.

WAMM worked with the county on its medical marijuana identification card program as well as on guidelines on how much pot a qualified patient may possess and grow, for example.

Such community acceptance has not spread to the federal level, however.

In September 2002, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided the cooperative's Davenport garden, uprooting 167 plants and hauling the Corrals to jail.

They have yet to be charged in connection with the raid, which brought condemnation from city and county officials as well as U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel.

Weeks later, a horde of national media descended on Santa Cruz to watch WAMM host a medical pot giveaway to about a dozen cooperative members on the steps of Santa Cruz City Hall.

The Santa Cruz City Council went so far as to deputize the Corrals that year.

WAMM is now a party to two lawsuits. One aims to recover the pot that agents confiscated in 2002, a partly symbolic quest, as the stuff has likely lost potency by now.

Another suit seeks to bar future enforcement actions by the federal government, a lawsuit to which the city and county of Santa Cruz have signed on as plaintiffs.

March Planned Through Heart of S.C. -- Medical Marijuana March

The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana march begins at noon Saturday at Pacific Avenue and Cathcart Street. It will proceed north to Church Street, and end at City Hall where a press conference is scheduled for 1 p.m. Several streets will be closed to traffic 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Author: Brian Seals, Staff Writer
Published: July 15, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: editorial@santa-cruz.com
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20957.shtml

 

By Ken McLaughlin, Mercury News
Source: San Jose Mercury News

Santa Cruz, Calif. -- Even in Santa Cruz, it's not every day that you see a couple of dozen marijuana plants flapping in the breeze as they're carried down the town's main street. But that was the scene Saturday as Santa Cruz activists held a protest march and rally that drew about 700 people who believe the U.S. government has no right to tell sick and dying people they can't use medicinal marijuana.

Members and supporters of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, better known as WAMM, held their largest demonstration since the city council watched alliance members pass out medicinal pot on the steps of City Hall in September 2002. Protesters, many in wheelchairs, hoisted live marijuana plants and held up the pictures of 154 WAMM members who have died since the group was formed in 1993.

The protesters were joined at City Call by five of seven city council members and Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, who urged the crowd not to give up the cause despite the major blow recently dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wormhoudt said she couldn't think of a crueler sight than seeing terminally ill people in wheelchairs taking to the streets to demand their right to take medicine. ``It is an image that ought to haunt all of us,'' she said.

The mood at the march was a combination of somber and festive. One protester held up a sign: ``This is a Non-Smoking Event. Thank You for Not Lighting Up.''

Apparently, no one did.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month ruled 6-3 that federal drug laws continue to trump the efforts of California and other states to permit the use of pot for medicinal reasons. The court's decision means federal law enforcement officials retain the power to prosecute medicinal marijuana patients like Angel McClary Raich, the Oakland woman at the center of the Supreme Court fight.

But medicinal marijuana advocates are trying to make sure that states don't back away from their own laws permitting medicinal marijuana.

``We are fighting back,'' said Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national Drug Law Reform Project, which moved to Santa Cruz last summer.

Earlier this month, California health officials suspended a pilot program that gave medicinal marijuana users state-issued identification cards so that they can avoid arrest. State Health Director Sandra Shewry asked the state attorney general's office to review the Supreme Court ruling to determine whether the ID program would put patients and state employees at risk of federal prosecution.

Boyd said the ACLU would battle the trend, which has also surfaced in Alaska and Hawaii, other states that have legalized medicinal pot.

``If Governor Schwarzenegger does not reinstitute the medical marijuana card program, we will take him to court and force him to do it,'' Boyd told the cheering crowd at City Hall.

WAMM is also pursuing another legal argument: that the right to alleviate pain is constitutionally guaranteed. Prominent attorney Gerald Uelmen, who teaches law at Santa Clara University, has joined WAMM's legal battle.

The September 2002 protest was triggered by a raid on WAMM's marijuana garden north of Davenport. About 30 Drug Enforcement Administration agents carrying M-16s cut down 167 plants, arresting the group's co-founders, Valerie and Michael Corral. But the U.S. Attorney's Office has never filed charges against them.

In April 2004, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose forbade any further federal raids on WAMM. It was that court protection that made it legal for the group's members to carry the marijuana plants through downtown Santa Cruz on Saturday, Valerie Corral said.

But the protection is expected to expire soon as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Oakland case.

Because of fears that federal drug agents will once again raid their medicinal marijuana garden, WAMM will stop planting and will rely instead on marijuana donations, Corral said Saturday. She also said she and her husband feared federal prosecutors might finally decide to press charges in the 2002 case.

Note: Several officials show support.

Complete Title: 700 Protesters in Santa Cruz Rally for Medicinal Marijuana

Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Author: Ken McLaughlin, Mercury News
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2005
Copyright: 2005 San Jose Mercury News
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.mercurynews.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20963.shtml

 

By Nancy Pasternack, Sentinel Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz -- It was short on floats and balloons. But Saturday's downtown procession of medical marijuana users and their supporters was long on clarity. Several hundred members and friends of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana rode in wheelchairs or walked slowly up Pacific Avenue, most of them holding signs with headshot photos of deceased loved ones who had counted on relief from medical marijuana during their final months or years. Some held or wore cannabis plants.

In the wake of a June 6 Supreme Court ruling that has called into question the authority of individual states to employ their own medical marijuana laws, advocates for the beleaguered Santa Cruz cooperative have redoubled efforts to differentiate themselves from recreational drug users, and to promote legal access to what they feel is a medically useful, and in some cases, necessary drug.

Rick Steeb of San Jose joined the throngs Saturday in their march toward Santa Cruz City Hall. Steeb said he has been using medical marijuana for the last four years. The drug, he said, does much to mitigate pressure and pain in his eyes, and to alleviate his insomnia.

"I'm concerned about the providers," he said of Valerie and Michael Corral - founders of WAMM - and other cooperative marijuana growers.

"They have so many terminally ill patients who absolutely depend on the relief these drugs provide," Steeb said.

If the Supreme Court ruling were to result in federal crackdowns on growers, "I would have to seek the drug out on the street," he said.

Stephanie Sakasai's sign bore a black-and-white shot of her best friend Chelene Cook, who died in 1996 of brain cancer. Cook had been supplied with drugs from WAMM in the months before her death, and, according to Sakasai, had benefited a great deal from them.

"I know it was because of it that she lived as long as she did," said Sakasai.

Participants in the noon hour's quiet, somber parade settled in the courtyard of City Hall to hear from elected officials, and local and regional medical marijuana advocates.

Cheers rang out in the City Hall courtyard when City Councilmember Cynthia Matthews read aloud from a proclamation signed by Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin, who was not present Saturday. The statement declared July 16th "Medical Marijuana Day."

Allen Hopper, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's drug law reform division, compared acts of civil disobedience on behalf of medical marijuana with acts that led to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education.

The ACLU drug law reform division headquarters is in Santa Cruz.

"People have stood up and said, ‘we're not going to take this anymore,'" Hopper said of Saturday's parade and rally.

The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which rendered segregated schools unconstitutional, wouldn't have stood a chance politically, he said, except for the social movement behind it.

Several blocks away from the rhetoric, Santa Cruz Police Lt. Mark Sanders spoke by telephone about medical versus recreational use of marijuana as a practical, law enforcement matter.

"We have guidelines, but they get evaluated on a case-by-case basis," he said. The difference between what is currently considered legal and illegal possession, he said, "is frequently very blurry and very difficult to judge."

Note: S.C. mayor declares July 16 Medical Marijuana Day.

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Author: Nancy Pasternack, Sentinel Staff Writer
Published: July 17, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: editorial@santa-cruz.com
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20964.shtml

 

By Brian Seals, Sentinel Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz -- Picking up the phone at her Westside office, Valerie Corral was a little preoccupied. The co-founder of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana was trying to hunt down a 33-year-old member of the group who's ill with breast cancer. And homeless. "They get ill and they're not able to make rent," said Corral with an air of familiarity with these kinds of situations. Members of the Santa Cruz medical marijuana cooperative are accustomed to peering over their shoulders looking for federal agents and battling illness.

So a celebration is a much needed respite.

"It's a way to keep some joy and levity and celebration in the mix," Corral said.

The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana is set to host its third annual WAMMFest 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 10 at San Lorenzo Park in Santa Cruz.

What began as a party commemorating the bust of a medical marijuana garden has evolved into an annual celebration.

Since 2003, the cooperative has hosted the event around the anniversary of the September 2002 bust of its Davenport garden, when U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents uprooted 167 of its plants.

The intervening years have been a roller coaster for the group.

The second year was filled with hope, as the group was operating under a federal court injunction that barred any further raids on its garden.

This year, it's back to concern as a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling put an end to that protection.

Nonetheless, organizers say the party is on.

They note the day is not a "smoke-out" and illegal toking is not welcomed. Rather, it is a day of music, food and crafts for kids.

This year renowned author and activist Paul Krassner, known as the "father of the underground press," will be appearing at the festival.

Mayor Mike Rotkin and Councilwoman Emily Reilly are scheduled for stints in the dunking booth, a fixture of the event.

An estimated 1,000 people have attended each of the last two events, which Corral said the group hopes to keep an annual gathering "as long as we're not in jail."

"We're offering the community something back for supporting us," Corral said.

A reception with writer Paul Krassner is planned at a private residence for $40 per person the night before the festival.

For more information, call 425-0580, or log on to: http://www.wamm.org/

Note: Third annual event allows co-op to focus on positive.

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Author: Brian Seals, Sentinel Staff Writer
Published: August 13, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: editorial@santa-cruz.com
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21030.shtml

 

By Nancy Pasternack, Sentinel Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Santa Cruz -- He's smoked pot since he was 14. Eighty-four-year-old George Van Vlaenderen's early experiences with marijuana were in the mid-1930s, before its use was prohibited by federal law. Now, smoking the drug relieves eye pressure caused by his cataracts, the World War II veteran Navy pilot said. He stood in the sunshine near a members-only smoking tent at the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana gathering Saturday and shared his thoughts. Those who could legalize the drug, he said, have a vested interest in keeping marijuana illegal.

Allowing people to use products of the cannabis plant legally, he said, "would eliminate the need for a lot of prescription drugs."

"They'll do everything in their power to make sure it's not legal," Van Vlaenderen said, "because it would cost them millions of dollars ... they're scared like hell."

In spite of his jaunty beret and ready smile, the WAMM member's perspective represented more serious aspects of WAMMFest.

Beyond the cemetery of paper gravestones set up by the festival's organizers to represent deceased members, less grave aspects of the festival were in evidence.

"Get laid by a WAMM member: only $5" read a sign advertising Hawaiian-style leis of strung plastic cannabis leaves.

And a dreadlocked Homer Simpson toking from a bong graced the front of a tie-dyed "original art" shirt hawked by Jerry Converse. "Ahh, bong hits," the shirt reads.

Another shirt features Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs) smoking a large marijuana cigarette.

"But on the back," Converse said, picking up the garment and showing it off, "he turns into spaceman Spliff on a giant Rastafarian joint planet."

WAMM co-founder Valerie Corral dismisses purely recreational users who try to associate themselves with her group.

More pressing issues are at hand, she said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court did away with protections for marijuana cooperatives. Drug Enforcement Agency raids are a reality once again.

But eventually, she said, medical necessity will overcome politics.

"Everybody faces death - we're all future skulls," she said. And keeping marijuana illegal "hasn't saved or extended a single life."

WAMM member Diana Poppay, 48, emerges from the smoking tent. The mother of two said she has suffered with multiple sclerosis since 1975, and that medical marijuana's effects have helped relieve pain, stop her muscle spasms and it allows her to eat and sleep in peace.

She said she's thankful for the pure, organic drugs she gets through Corral's cooperative. She doesn't trust other sources of marijuana.

"On the street," she said, "you don't know what they're doing with that stuff."

Corral said she welcomes government scrutiny.

"If (government officials) watch us closely enough, they'll fall in love with WAMM," she said. "We're going to charm the DEA."

Complete Title: Green is The Scene: Serious and Not-So-Serious Issues Highlight Local Pot Club's Festival

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Author: Nancy Pasternack, Sentinel Staff Writer
Published: September 11, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: editorial@santa-cruz.com
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21101.shtml