SAN FRANCISCO — When Matt Vaughn was pulled over for speeding on Interstate 5 in Northern California early on a Sunday morning, he had a bag of marijuana on the passenger seat.
The California Highway Patrol officer smelled the weed, searched the car, took the marijuana and pipe and gave Vaughn a sobriety test, which he passed. An angry Vaughn showed the officer his doctor's recommendation to use marijuana for glaucoma. The officer was unimpressed.
"He said, in Glenn County, they don't recognize those kinds of things," said Vaughn, 55, who has a long ponytail, mustache and beard. "He was not very friendly about it."
The 2005 incident cost Vaughn a speeding ticket, his 1 1/4 ounce of pot and his driver's license -- and nine months of fighting the California Department of Motor Vehicles -- before he prevailed.
As a result of that and other encounters involving medical marijuana, an advocacy group has sued the DMV, asking for a written policy that says medical marijuana should be treated the same as prescription drugs.
The suit contends that the DMV has a pattern of investigating and suspending the driver's licenses of people who use pot on the recommendation of their doctors.
"It happens a disturbing amount," said Joseph D. Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, which promotes legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes and research.
Elford said his Oakland-based group has received complaints about the DMV from patients in several Northern and Central California counties, though Elford and others involved in the issue said they were unaware of any Southern California cases.
The DMV can obtain medical information about someone if an investigation is launched into the person's fitness to drive.
In Vaughn's case, the CHP officer sent the DMV a report about Vaughn, along with a medical journal article saying marijuana was not the choice drug for treating glaucoma.
In another case, Rose Johnson, 53, the plaintiff named in the pending suit, used medical marijuana for back and neck injuries and lost her license after a DMV worker referred her for an investigation.
The worker had noted that Johnson had difficulty moving when she went in to renew her driver's license. Despite her perfect driving record, the DMV cited the Merced woman's marijuana use last year in revoking her license, the suit said.
