Steven Cuevas
May 19, 2009
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The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to take up challenges to California's medical marijuana law filed by San Bernardino and San Diego counties. KPCC's Steven Cuevas reports advocates of medicinal pot today wasted no time in pressuring local lawmakers to let them start filling prescriptions.

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Steven Cuevas: It was part celebration, part demonstration. A couple dozen medical marijuana advocates crowded the plaza outside San Bernardino County's government center. They praised the high court for rejecting the county's challenge of California's medical marijuana law – Proposition 215.

Larry Swerdlow: We're jubilant, glad to see that it finally happened and put an end to San Bernardino County's refusal to uphold state law.

Cuevas: Now, Larry Swerdlow and other medical marijuana advocates want San Bernardino County supervisors to follow that law. Swerdlow runs a clinic in Riverside called the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation. It dispenses prescriptions for medical pot to eligible patients.

Swerdlow: We'd like to see them issue the ID cards, to implement zoning ordinances to allow for collectives to operate in the unincorporated parts of the county, do something to undo the damage they've done to medical marijuana patients that have been arrested and put through the criminal justice system in San Bernardino County.

Cuevas: San Bernardino County argues that Proposition 215 gives no clear direction of how medicinal pot should be distributed. County leaders also say it requires authorities to ignore federal drug laws they're sworn to uphold.

Lower courts have consistently rejected those arguments, and say counties must issue medical marijuana ID cards to eligible patients. With virtually no legal wiggle room left, San Bernardino County must now consider how and when to do just that. The county supervisors will take up the issue next month.