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Reference should also be made to Controlled Substances Cases

Raich v. Ashcroft, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 25317 $[Lexis]
Summary: The Ninth Circuit held that the federal Department of Justice should be temporarily enjoined from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act with respect to medical marijuana users in California pending trial of the case. The plaintiffs, a patient and two unnamed growers who supply her with the drug and another patient who grows her own marijuana, filed suit after a series of DEA raids against medical marijuana patients and suppliers in California, which allows medical marijuana use. The plaintiffs argued that because the medical use of marijuana by California residents does not cross state lines and is not commerce, Congress is without power to regulate it under the Commerce Clause. The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit found that the plaintiffs’ argument that the federal law is unconstitutional as applied to them was likely to succeed. The court found that “the appellants’ class of activities - the intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician - is, in fact, different in kind from drug trafficking.” The appellate panel remanded the case to the district judge and ordered him to enjoin raids by federal officials pending trial of the case. The ruling may be appealed by the Justice Department to a larger panel of the circuit court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, 121 S. Ct. 1711, 149 L. Ed. 2d 722 (2001). [LII] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: The issue in this case is whether medical necessity is a valid defense to a violation of the Controlled Substances Act. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative is a medical cannabis dispensary, organized to provide marijuana to terminally-ill Californians pursuant to Compassionate Use Act, that was charged with providing the drug in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, specifically "it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally… to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance." 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) [LII] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]. The court noted that marijuana is a schedule I drug, with no currently accepted medical use and held that medical necessity is not a defense to manufacturing and distributing marijuana.
Related Statute: Compassionate Use Act of 1996, CAL. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 11362.5. [Findlaw] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]

• Summary: the statute creates an exception to California laws that prohibit the possession and cultivation of marijuana such that those prohibitions do not apply to a patient or his primary caregiver who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the patient's medical purposes upon the recommendation or approval of a physician.
• Similar statutory provisions are discussed under Controlled Substances

Kuromiya v. United States, 78 F. Supp. 2d 367 (E.D. Pa. 1999). [LII] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: This case is an equal protection challenge to an experimental government compassionate use program which provided medical marijuana to eight recipients. Plaintiffs argued they were similarly situated to those receiving the drug; however, the court rejected the challenge, holding that the classification did not burden a fundamental right or target a suspect class, and that the disparity of treatment was rationally related to a legitimate government purpose.

Proyect v. United States, 101 F.3d 11 (2d Cir. 1996). [LII] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: Proyect, who was investigated for growing marijuana, challenged the Controlled Substances Act arguing that criminalization without a requirement of intent to distribute in interstate commerce violated the Commerce Clause. The court held that the Act was a valid exercise of Commerce Clause power, noting Congress’ declaration that drug trafficking flows through interstate commerce.

Rollins v. Ulmer, 15 P.3d 749 (Alaska 2001). [LII] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: Plaintiff in this case challenged an Alaska medical marijuana law, alleging that the requirement that users register with the Department of Health and Human Services violated constitutionally-protected privacy rights. The Alaska Supreme Court held that the law did not interfere with the right to make independent medical choices and did not violate privacy rights because the patients did not have to divulge personal information. Additionally, the court noted that the information collected could only be used by public officials for narrowly specified purposes.

Conant v. McCaffrey, No. C 97-00139 WHA, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13024 , 2000 WL 1281174 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 7, 2000). $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: A class of Californians with painful or terminal diseases and their physicians challenged Office of the National Drug Control, Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services policies that used the Controlled Substances Act to threaten physicians’ licenses for recommending medical marijuana to their patients. The court noted the free speech interest in allowing physicians freely to dispense their opinions in the context of the doctor-patient relationship and held that the government cannot revoke the license of a physician or investigate him under the Drug Enforcement Act merely for recommending the use of medical marijuana based on a sincere medical judgment.

Jenks v. State, 582 So. 2d 676 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1991). [HTML] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: Jenks and his wife, who both suffered from AIDS, were convicted of manufacturing cannabis which they used to control nausea. This opinion acquits appellants, noting that they met the elements of the medical necessity defense and that marijuana’s presence on Schedule I did not preclude the use of that defense because these drugs are subject to limited medical uses.

Commonwealth v. Hutchins, 575 N.E.2d 741 (Mass. 1991). $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: The defendant in this case, who was suffering from scleroderma, attempted to raise a medical necessity defense to prosecution for cultivating and possessing marijuana. The Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected the argument, holding that the harm to the defendant, should he not be allowed to smoke marijuana, did not outweigh the harm to the public which would result from the deleterious effects on drug enforcement efforts.

Seeley v. State, 940 P.2d 604 (Wash. 1997). [HTML] $[Lexis] $[Westlaw]
Summary: This challenge to a Washington law, which names marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, was brought by a patient with terminal bone cancer who claimed therapeutic benefits from smoking marijuana. The Washington Supreme Court held that the law did not violate the Washington Constitution and that the right to smoke marijuana also fails federal equal protection analysis because it is not a fundamental right and is not within a zone of privacy.