Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jun 2005
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2005 The Media News Group
Contact:  http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Author: Terry Vau Dell, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Monson (Diane Monson)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Raich v. Gonzales)

OROVILLE MEDICAL MARIJUANA PLAINTIFF SAYS SHE'LL KEEP GROWING POT

OROVILLE - Though Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding
federal arrests of medical marijuana patients was "crushing," an
Oroville woman who figured prominently in the case says it won't deter
her from growing medical pot at her home.

"I've called my bail bondsman just in case," said Diane Monson.

Monson, 48, was one of two women who sued the U.S. government after
their medical marijuana crops were uprooted by federal marshals in
separate raids.

Local authorities refused to take part in the 2002 bust at Monson's
rural Wyandotte ranch because she was complying with Butte County's
six-plant limit.

In suing Attorney General John Ashcroft over the seizure by federal
agents of small amounts of marijuana prescribed by their doctors,
Monson and Angel Raich, a 39-year-old Oakland cancer patient, asked
for a court order permitting them to smoke, grow or obtain pot without
fear of federal prosecution in states - such as California - that have
passed medical marijuana laws.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey wrote a "friend of the
court" brief on Monson's behalf prior to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of
Appeal in San Francisco upholding the pair's civil suit in December
2003.

The Bush Administration appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme
Court, which on Monday sided with the government in a 6-3 ruling
declaring that cultivation and use of marijuana ran afoul of federal
drug laws, even in states where medical marijuana is allowed.

Monson said she had not yet seen the written decision and thus doesn't
know what impact it will have on her.

She said her attorneys have indicated the ruling should not materially
affect medical marijuana statutes in ten states including California,
but it could embolden federal agents to make more such arrests.

"I'm very disappointed ... It's one more peace of mind that has been
taken from me," the she said of the high court ruling.

Monson said she "particularly decried" the fact that liberal Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with the court majority.

"She is a cancer patient herself and has been through treatment," the
Oroville plaintiff noted.

The court decision is "doubly painful" to Monson, who lost her husband
to cancer less than a year ago.

She said marijuana helped to control her husband's nausea and pain
while he was battling the disease.

Ramsey said the high court ruling "basically won't effect" local
medical marijuana prosecutions.

"We will continue to enforce Proposition 215, which allows for
cultivation and personal use of marijuana with a doctor's
recommendation," said the district attorney.

"I would expect that those who are legitimately following the spirit
and the letter of 215 will have little to fear from the federal
government," which Ramsey said until now has concentrated primarily on
"higher-level marijuana distribution rings and larger
cultivations."

Monson, who works as a bookkeeper for an Oroville landscaping firm and
is a volunteer in a county library literacy program, said she smokes
marijuana with a doctor's recommendation for chronic pain due to a
degenerative spinal disease.

Butte County sheriff's deputies had flown over the couple's
heavily-wooded property 14 miles east of Oroville in the summer of
2002, but couldn't tell how large their marijuana grow was.

Local and federal authorities raided the couple's rural property later
that year, resulting in an unusual "three-hour standoff," recalls Monson.

After confirming the county's six-plant guidelines had not been
exceeded, sheriff's officers started to leave, but the federal agents
reportedly said they were compelled under federal drug law to seize
the pot.

When contacted by his investigator, Ramsey said he initially ordered
the deputies to "take whatever means necessary" to stop the agents
from uprooting the plants until he conferred with their superiors.

But after discussing the matter with the acting U.S. attorney in
Sacramento, Ramsey said he advised the local officers to leave the
site and in no way assist the federal agents.

At the time, Ramsey said he warned the U.S. attorney his agents would
be viewed by the public as "jack-booted thugs ... if they took this
woman's measly six plants."

Monson, one of two women in the center of the legal firestorm, said
that as federal authorities were chopping down her small grow, she
recited aloud the entire text of Proposition 215, the 1996
voter-approved Compassionate Use law, which legalized medical use of
pot in California.

After a story about her case was printed in a local newspaper, Monson
was contacted by Raich, a disabled mother of two in Oakland who
suffers from an inoperable brain tumor.

The Oroville woman said after speaking with several cancer and AIDS
patients in the Bay Area the two women decided to seek legal
protection through the courts against federal arrests of medical
marijuana patients.

Her elation when the 9th Circuit Court upheld the women's suit in 2004
was "crushed" by Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling, she said.

"I don't understand it ... I'm shocked and disappointed," she
said.

"I grew cannabis within the county's guidelines and I will continue to
do so," she vowed. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake