REGION: Bilbray's daughter sues to block crackdown on pot dispensaries

After being diagnosed with melanoma, Rep. Brian Bilbray's daughter, Briana, says she began using medical marijuana to ease the nausea associated with her chemotherapy treatment.

Now, the 25-year-old offspring of the 50th Congressional District Republican is among a group of individuals and medical marijuana dispensaries suing the federal government to stop it from trying to shutter the dispensaries in California.

In a series of lawsuits filed in federal court over the past week, the plaintiffs are seeking a restraining order to stop the federal crackdown.

In one of the suits filed Monday in San Diego, Briana Bilbray is listed as a "medical cannabis patient with a California doctor's recommendation to use medical cannabis." 

Melanoma is considered the most dangerous type of skin cancer and is the leading cause of death from skin disease.

Bilbray said Tuesday her cancer is now in remission and she is no longer using the drug. But she said the federal government should recognize the benefits of medical marijuana .

"I've become very passionate about the issue," she said. "It actually does work. People have this negative connotation in their mind about marijuana and if they researched the issue they would see how it can help."

She said she and her dad have had long discussions about the issue.   He released a statement Monday saying he and his wife respect their daughter's "right to fight for what she believes in."

"We may not agree with our children on every issue, but Karen and I are very proud parents," the lawmaker said.

Brian Bilbray spokesman Travis Considine said Tuesday that the congressman remains opposed to efforts to decriminalize marijuana, including a recent push to reclassify it in federal law to permit its use for medicinal purposes.

Federal law prohibits the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana except in limited circumstances while California law allows people who get medical marijuana cards from licensed physicians to buy marijuana from licensed dispensaries.

Federal prosecutors recently moved to close down the dispensaries by threatening their landlords with seizure of their property.

The lawsuits filed in all of California's federal districts contend the Justice Department is illegally entrapping pot providers by reversing its own policy.

The attorneys cite a Santa Cruz County marijuana cooperative's deal with federal prosecutors to dismiss its case against the government because the department issued a memo telling U.S. attorneys to defer to states on medical use of the drug.

The lawsuits claim that by introducing the Justice Department's so-called Medical Marijuana Guidance memo in that action, prosecutors had in effect stated the government's approach to medical marijuana.

Based on that 2009 memo, medical marijuana providers in the state could reasonably assume they would not be subject to federal prosecution, the suits argue.

"They locked themselves in," said San Francisco attorney Matt Kumin, lead attorney on the suits.

Earlier this year, Briana Bilbray appeared before the Imperial Beach City Council to speak against that city's move to ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

She told the council her cancer had progressed and spread into her lymph nodes.

Her brother, Brian P. Bilbray, was the only council member to oppose the ban that was passed.

Their father served as mayor of Imperial Beach from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.


