June 23rd, 2003

Open Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein
From Valerie Corral

Dear Senator Feinstein,

In a few days Senator, you and your colleagues of the Senate Judiciary Committee will be presented with the responsibility to question and evaluate Ms. Karen Tandy in her appointment as the new DEA Administrator. Your task should reflect the outcry of your constituents, sick people whose lives and freedoms are being threatened by this very agency. People who are facing death should not be forced to suffer silently, not when we elected you to carry our voice to Washington.

Years ago you hosted the wedding of a mutual friend in your backyard. It wasn’t long afterward that she discovered the worst news of her life… a diagnosis of colon cancer. It would be difficult to forget her…she served as police commissioner of San Francisco; she was an extraordinary woman, exceedingly ethical, of unwavering integrity. She was a member of WAMM, our hospice-like, patient-run collective, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana. And while her passing has taken her from us, it has not silenced her. I do not presume to speak for her, but it is my belief that she would also ask of you what I am about to ask…

As you sit with the Committee to review Ms. Tandy’s upcoming appointment, reflect for a moment if you will, the experiences of those you have known who faced illness and death. Ask yourself if the potential for abuse outweighs the desire to assuage pain? Does it deny the opportunity to access other drugs that could be dangerous if not for education and monitoring?  After that you might ask Ms. Tandy what priorities she will set regarding medical marijuana and then ask if she will continue the raids against Californians in compliance with The Compassionate Use Act.

I am an epileptic and co-founded WAMM in 1993. WAMM has grown to nearly 250 members, 85% suffering from cancer and AIDS. We have worked candidly to developed relationships with city and county agencies, including law enforcement and counties-wide care teams and hospices, creating sound and sensible protocols and ordinances. My husband, Mike and I have both been deputized by our city.

Yet, last September nearly 30, armed DEA agents came to our home, automatic weapons drawn and yelling, pushed me to the ground and held a gun to my head. They threatened my friend, fellow WAMM member, Suzanne Pfeil, a paraplegic crippled from post polio, yelling for her to stand, an impossibility without her braces. Over the next 8 hours Mike and I were interrogated, kept handcuffed and taken into custody at a federal holding cell in San Jose. Our community was outraged. Following this heinous deed over a thousand people came to Santa Cruz to support WAMM activities and to denounce the raid. In direct response to the DEA’s invasion of our garden Police Chief Lansdowne of San Jose refused to allow his deputies to continue to work with the DEA.

             Senator, will you ask Ms. Tandy if she will consult with and respect local agencies and state law? Will you Senator, ask her if she has read the 1988 ruling from the DEA’s chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, in which he states, “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. ... The provisions of the Controlled Substances Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. … It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance.”

Will you ask her if she has read the1997 New England Journal of Medicine editorial that called the federal ban on medical use of marijuana “misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane”?

Senator, will you ask if she really thinks it our government’s job to terrify a disabled woman in bed, to put a gun to the head of an epileptic? Will you ask her if she thinks it her job to ignore science and to defy the democratic process? Senator, will you ask yourself these questions? And your answer should echo California’s avalanche of votes that cry yes to medical marijuana.

I would ask her myself, but this is something we must rely on you to do for us; our lives depend on it.

magna est veritas, et prevalebit

Valerie Corral and her husband, Mike are co-founders of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which was raided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Sept. 5, 2002.