Jerry Brown to challenge court’s ruling on medical marijuana

State Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown is preparing to challenge a recent appellate court decision that struck down California’s guidelines on medical marijuana possession and cultivation, leaving patients and police wondering how much weed is too much.

Brown said in an interview this week that he would ask the Supreme Court to overturn last month’s decision by the state Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, because it inhibits the state’s attempts to control abuses while protecting legitimate access to cannabis.

The court ruled that the Legislature in 2003 made an unconstitutional amendment to the 1996 voter-approved Compassionate Use Act by specifying the amount of marijuana that patients could possess for medicinal purposes.

The decision, hailed by some medical marijuana advocates, did not only cast doubt on the legality of the standard of eight ounces of dried pot and six mature or 12 immature plants, which is contained in the legislation. It also threw a cloud of uncertainty over more liberal guidelines adopted by some counties, particularly those in the marijuana belt of the North Coast.

Brown, who supports medicinal use of marijuana, said the legislation was a reasonable approach to implementing a vaguely written ballot measure. “The proposition is not as clear we would like,” he said. “You do not need an unlimited quantity of marijuana for medicine. But what is the quantity?”

The medical marijuana law was designed to provide access to patients with cancer, AIDS and other ailments. But implementation has created a hodgepodge of local marijuana controls.