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New Lawsuit Challenging Federal Government On Medical Cannabis - Feb. 21, 2007

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Wed, 02/21/2007 - 6:42pm — Nathan

*_For Immediate Release:_ *
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

*Patients File Lawsuit Challenging Federal Government*
*On Medical Cannabis, Demand FDA Correct Misinformation *

*/Americans for Safe Access suit follows two-year petition process,
comes on heels of new study on effectiveness of medical cannabis /*

*Oakland**, CA**.* The patients advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a lawsuit today in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California demanding that the federal government cease issuing misinformation on medical cannabis and correct the information it has released.

"The FDA position on medical cannabis is incorrect, dishonest and a
flagrant violation of laws requiring the government to base policy on sound science," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel for Americans for Safe Access.

The suit charges a violation of the little-known Data Quality Act (DQA). The DQA requires federal agencies such as Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rely on sound science. It also allows citizens to challenge government information believed to be inaccurate or based on faulty, unreliable data. The ASA case specifically challenges the government position that "marijuana has no accepted medical value."

"The science to support medical cannabis is overwhelming, yet the
government continues to play politics with the lives of patients
desperately in need of pain relief," said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. "Americans for Safe Access is filing this lawsuit on medical cannabis to demand that the FDA stop holding science hostage to politics."

Today's filing is the outcome of a more than two-year petition process and comes on the heels of a recent University of California, San Francisco study demonstrating the effectiveness of medical cannabis in treating pain in people living with HIV/AIDS.

ASA first filed a petition to force HHS -- the FDA's parent agency - to correct statements about the medical value of cannabis in October 2004. Under the DQA, agencies must respond or file for an extension 60 days from the date of the first petition filing. The government response was a statement saying that it would not act on the petition, a position it has maintained despite ASA's May 2005 appeal. Using the DQA's judicial review provisions, the Oakland-based organization is now taking its cause to the courts.

"Citizens have a right to expect the government to use the best
available information for policy decisions. This innovative case turns the Data Quality Act into a tool for the public interest," said preeminent legal scholar and case co-counsel Alan Morrison, who founded Public Citizen's Litigation Group and currently serves as a senior lecturer at Stanford Law School.

"I had side effects from morphine patches, oxycontin, and oxycodone
before starting a medical cannabis regime that has allowed me to get off prescription drugs and live virtually pain-free," said Blackfoot, Idaho resident Victoria Lansford, a named patient in the lawsuit who suffers from fibromyalgia. "The government's refusal to face up to the science is irresponsible and harms citizens like me for whom this treatment is a lifeline."

###

ASA is the largest national member-based organization of patients,
medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. ASA works to overcome political and legal barriers by creating policies that improve access to medical cannabis for patients and researchers through legislation, education, litigation, grassroots actions, advocacy and services for patients and the caregivers. ASA has over 30,000 active members with chapters and affiliates in more than 40 states.

DQA Complaint:
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/DQA_Complaint.pdf

DQA Background info: http://www.safeaccessnow.org/DQA

Steph Sherer
Executive Director
Americans for Safe Access
www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org
* *

‹ ASA Co-Sponsors Largest HIV/AIDS Lobby Day - April 2007 LA Times: Checks of medical pot dealers urged (Jan. 28, 2007) ›

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Wed, 02/21/2007 - 7:22pm — Nathan
Nathan's picture

Associated Press: Group sues feds over medical marijuana claims

Group sues feds over medical marijuana claims
Posted on Wed, Feb. 21, 2007

LISA LEFF
Associated Press

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/16750926.htm

OAKLAND, Calif. - Armed with a new study that showed smoking marijuana eased pain in some HIV patients, medical marijuana advocates launched their latest attempt to decriminalize the drug by suing the federal government Wednesday over its claim that pot has no medical value.

The lawsuit filed in federal court by Americans for Safe Access accuses the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of engaging in "arbitrary and unlawful behavior" that prevents "sick and dying persons from seeking to obtain medicine that could provide them needed, and often lifesaving relief."

The Oakland-based advocacy group wants a judge to force the department and the Food and Drug Administration to stop giving out information that casts doubt on the efficacy of marijuana in treating various illnesses.

The lawsuit differs from previous legal efforts to decriminalize marijuana because it seeks to get a federal agency simply to acknowledge that pot can help reduce the symptoms of some conditions.

The change would make it easier for states to develop their own medical marijuana policies, said Joe Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access. In the past, supporters of medical marijuana have focused on getting the government to stop classifying marijuana as an illegal drug.

"We are not asking the federal government to change what it does about medical marijuana, we are asking them to change what they say about it," Elford said.

Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation. The FDA is a division of the department.

Besides discouraging people who might benefit from smoking pot, the agency's position bolsters the Drug Enforcement Agency's attempts to crack down on medical marijuana use in states where the practice is legal, he said.

California is one of 11 states where marijuana use is legal for people with a doctor's recommendation, but because the DEA considers pot illegal patients can still be arrested and prosecuted by federal authorities.

Jacqueline Patterson, 28, who moved to California from Missouri so she could get marijuana for a severe stutter associated with her cerebral palsy, said the government's insistence that pot has no medical benefits puts an unnecessary burden on people who get relief from using it.

"It really creates a dual stigmatization in the states that have no protections," Patterson said. "Not only do I have this profoundly humiliating disability, I smoked pot, and my family has been taught the same addictive narcotic story that I had been."

Last week, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco reported in the journal Neurology that a test involving 50 HIV patients showed that those who smoked pot experienced much less pain than those given placebos.

Americans for Safe Access said in the lawsuit that Health and Human Services has rejected its requests to retract the assertion that cannabis "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," a position the agency has advertised since 2001.

Countering that statement by petitioning the government and distributing evidence that marijuana eases the symptoms of cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and other conditions has cost Americans for Safe Access more than $100,000, the group said in its suit.

Since California voters approved medical marijuana use in 1996, 10 other states have adopted measures protecting qualified patients from state prosecution. They are Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

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