[420 Girl]

Palm Springs residents joined demonstrators around the world today for the Million Marijuana March through downtown to address law makers to end a federal ban on the drug.

Organizer Aurora Maldonado, who led a similar march last year in Palm Springs, will conduct the march to celebrate medical marijuana and press law makers to end the federal ban.

"It's all about liberating marijuana,'' Maldonado said. ``Marijuana is good medicine for a lot of people and it is time to stop arresting people for using this harmless plant.''

The marchers were scheduled to meet at 10:30 a.m. at the parking structure at Baristo Road and Indian Canyon Drive and then march through downtown.

Maldonado said she is aware that the city of Palm Springs passed an ordinance that will allow two medical marijuana dispensaries within certain industrial zones in the city in March.

"What most people don't know is it's legal under state law, but still illegal under federal law even though Obama and the attorney general said that the D.E.A. could not do anymore raids on cooperatives and dispensaries, raids are still going on,'' she said.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced in March that raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on marijuana dispensaries in the states where medical marijuana is legal will be stopped.

Proposition 215, approved by California voters in 1996, made it legal to sell marijuana -- on a non-profit basis -- to people who have a doctor's prescription. Since then hundreds of dispensaries have sprung up throughout the state.

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