The California Supreme Court today struck down the state’s limits on how
much medical marijuana a patient can possess, concluding that the
restrictions imposed by the Legislature were an unconstitutional
amendment of a 1996 voter-approved initiative.

The decision means that patients and caregivers with a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana can now possess as much as is
“reasonably related to the patient’s current medical needs,” a standard
that the court established in a 1997 decision.

“I’m very pleased. They gave us exactly what we wanted,” said Gerald F. Uelmen, a law professor at Santa Clara University who argued
the case for Patrick K. Kelly, a medical marijuana patient from
Lakewood who was convicted of possession and cultivation. “This makes
it very clear that all of the rights of patients under the
Compassionate Use Act are fully preserved.”

The initiative did not limit the amount of marijuana that a patient could possess or cultivate other than to require it be
“personal medical purposes.”