Ok you people can put the petitions away now. We really can grow and posses as much cannabis as we want with a simple doctors reccomendation. The Attorney General's Office even agreed that limits are unconstitutional.
http://cbs5.com/local/medical.marijuana.case.2.1290320.html said:The California Supreme Court, at a special session in Berkeley on Tuesday, appeared likely to strike down a state law that sets an 8-ounce limit on the amount of medical marijuana a patient can possess at one time.
The court found itself in the unusual position of having a prosecutor and a defense attorney in a criminal case agree it would be unconstitutional to prosecute genuine patients for violating the limit.
Deputy California Attorney General Michael Johnsen told the court, "We are basically on the same path."
Johnsen, representing prosecutors, and Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, representing a medical marijuana patient, both said the limit set by the Legislature in 2003 is an unconstitutional amendment of the state's voter-approved Compassionate Use Act of 1996.
Their only disagreement was in how the court should go about invalidating the limit procedurally and whether the panel should explicitly uphold another part of the 2003 law that sets up an identification card program.
The hearing on the appeal by Patrick Kelly of Los Angeles County of his marijuana possession conviction was part of an outreach session held by the court at the School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.
The court's seven justices took the case under consideration after hearing an hour of arguments and have three months to issue a written ruling.
Kelly, who had a doctor's approval for using medical marijuana for back pain and other ailments, was convicted of possession in 2006 after sheriff's deputies found 12 ounces of dried marijuana in his house.
The 2003 law, entitled the Medical Marijuana Program, was intended by the Legislature to clarify and supplement the 1996 voter initiative, which protects medical marijuana patients from being prosecuted for using the drug.
In addition to designating the 8-ounce limit, the 2003 law established a voluntary identification card program for patients and caregivers.
Kelly argued in his appeal that the 8-ounce limit could not be used as a basis for prosecuting him because the Compassionate Use Act sets no limit and the new law amounted to an unconstitutional amendment.
The state Constitution forbids legislative amendments of laws enacted by voters unless a law specifically allows for amendments.
A state appeals court in Los Angeles agreed with Kelly's arguments last year but, in addition to overturning his conviction, struck down an entire section of the law in a way that resulted in invalidating the identification card system as well.
In Tuesday's arguments, Johnsen asked the high court to "simply narrow the remedy" by striking down the use of the limit in Kelly's case and leaving other issues "for another day."
But Uelmen asked the court to go farther and explicitly uphold the identification card provisions. He said under that interpretation, the law wouldn't limit the amount a patient can reasonably use, but would protect card-holding patients and caregivers from being arrested if they possess less than 8 ounces.
When Chief Justice Ronald George asked how narrow the court's eventual ruling should be, Uelmen answered, "I would look for a decision recognizing that there are other applications (of the 2003 law) that are not affected."