MAJOR CANNABIS NEWS: The Good Kind

CA Supreme Court Affirms ASA Win!
Appellate ruling that local police must uphold state law
is now binding statewide

Dear ASA supporter,

On Wednesday, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) quietly scored one of the most important legal victories since voters approved Proposition 215, when the California Supreme Court decided not to review or de-publish last year’s landmark return of property decision in Garden Grove v. Superior Court. By affirming the appellate court’s decision, the Supreme Court has made protection against wrongful seizure of medical marijuana legally binding throughout the state of California.

ASA needs your help right now to make the most of this victory and to keep fighting for patients’ rights. Please take a moment right now to join ASA or make a special contribution?

Last year, the California Court of Appeal ruled that state law enforcement could not use federal law as an excuse for not upholding California’s medical cannabis laws – therefore police must return medicine wrongfully seized from legal patients. ASA filed the successful appeal on behalf of Garden Grove patient Felix Kha in hopes of stemming the tide of hundreds of wrongful confiscations of medicine all over California. Our November victory should have ended the debate about “enforcing federal law,” but the decision was quickly appealed to the State Supreme Court.

As a result of literally hundreds of cases of wrongful medical marijuana confiscation, and careful legal planning and research, ASA’s legal team strongly defended the rights of Felix Kha and others like him. The whole process took more than two years! Think for a moment how lucky we are to have a dedicated legal team at ASA working full time to defend patients’ rights.

This victory would not have been possible without the ongoing and generous support of people like you – people who believe in the right to legally use medical cannabis in California. But now what? We need to make sure that the more than 250,000 legal patients, and thousands of attorneys and public defenders are sufficiently educated about patients’ rights and protection from medicine confiscation to which patients are now entitled. We also need to educate police officers, prosecutors, and judges. We need to tell this story in the media to end patient harassment and to ensure that police no longer hide behind the excuse that marijuana is illegal under federal law.

We can do all of this and press on to new victories for patients if we have your continued support! Please take a moment to join ASA or make a new pledge of monthly support right now. Your gift of $20, $50, or more per month will help us make the most of this case and finally succeed in defending patients’ rights to medicine. Please do it today, so we can keep fighting!

Thank you in advance for your generosity,

Don Duncan
California Director
Americans for Safe Access

P.S. For more information, please see ASA's page about the Garden Grove case.