Quick Hits (page 2)
Second Time is Another Charm
By: Bud Life
Perpetual medical marijuana defendant Michael Celli of Chowchilla, California had his second medical marijuana case against dismissed April (16th) of this year.
Celli was arrested on February 7th and spent about 9 days in jail for alleged felony sales and felony transportation of a controlled substance. The sales were implied while the transportation was actual.
Officers of the Merced Police Department initially made a routine traffic stop of Mr. Celli. When the marijuana was discovered this, in turn, led to a full blown search of Celli's vehicle, his house which is in another county and the arrest of Celli.
Celli's attorney, Bill McPike of Auberry, California, filed a demurrer along with a motion to dismiss after Celli was arrested in February.
The original hearing was scheduled for March 5th. However, the arraigning judge, Judge Ivey, granted the prosecution an additional 41 days to respond. No opposition to McPike's paperwork was offered.
When the hearing date finally arrived Mr. Celli ended up with an out of town retired judge, Glenn Richey from Modesto, instead of the original arraigning judge.
As has occurred in previous cases of this kind no testimony was offered and none taken. As soon as Judge Richey called the case the prosecutors couldn't wait to do a Penal Code Section 1385 dismissal. This took the judge by surprise as Richey claimed to have spent much time reading McPike's 40 pages of pleadings and the Mower decision.
Oral argument followed, though it was strictly between the judge and McPike.
McPike stated "Judge Richey lit into me and I replied with other excerpts from that case."
"I won't debate the law with you" replied Judge Richey.
Ultimately the case was dismissed and Celli's bail exonerated.
Then came time for the return order of marijuana, marijuana seeds and the bong. The judge appeared to squirm as he tried to determine proper wording. However, the prosecution already had signed the letter to the police for the return of Celli's property. It appeared that the prosecutor wanted to be covered by the judge's order. Judge Richey said he really didn't have control of the evidence, at which point McPike interjected and said "of course you do as the police are only the court's custodian of evidence."
Richey finally agreed, but worded the order to try to keep himself from making an order. He did ask McPike a few questions and then stated "I still think that should work."
McPike did not like what the judge was doing and stated "other courts have had the police bring the marijuana to court and have the judge distribute it. What's wrong with that?"
Judge Richey responded "because I won't be here after today, and I wouldn't want that to be another judge's responsibility."
However, it was the court clerk who did not finish entering the judge's instructions into the minute order. Thus, according to Celli's attorney Bill McPike, both Celli and McPike will have to check back within a week.
But Mr. Celli's court days are far from over. Celli will be back in court sometime in May. He has a contempt of court hearing scheduled against the Madera County District Attorney and former Chowchilla Chief of Police for refusing to return his one pound of medicine after his first case was dismissed.
The arraigning judge in that matter signed a return order and, as alleged, both the county district attorney and former chief of police refused to comply with the judge's order and conspired to, and subsequently did, transfer Celli's medicine to the DEA in violation of a standing court order.
When asked about what, if anything, Celli plans to do about his second arrest, McPike said "We will be filing a damage claim against the City of Merced and Merced PD. Merced apparently didn't know that 11362.765 legalized these provisions for a patient, and due to 215, this DA in my opinion misapplied the criminal statutes to a qualified patient. We find this happens everywhere."
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Growin' Our Own (page 2)
They Are At It Again
By: Elmore Stone
There is a saying attributed to the late, great Will Rogers: "Nobody's liberty is safe when the legislature is in session." Boy howdy, if that statement is not true in the State of California then none are.
If you care to recall, the voters of California enacted Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Short, simple, to the point. It was and remains easily understandable by everybody save two groups of people -- police and prosecutors. Why don't these two groups understand what was written in plain English? Because they deliberately choose not to. That is why.
Since the enactment of Prop. 215 members of the state legislature have been vowing, mostly because of the whines and piteous cries of law enforcement and prosecutors, to "clarify" Prop. 215. Lo and behold the unthinkable happened. Last year as a matter of fact. California State Senator Vasconcellos authored, with the able assistance Assembly Member Leno, SB-420. It passed and was signed into law by Governor Gray Davis on his way out the door.
Did SB-420, which took effect this year "clarify" Prop. 215? Well, I'll put to you this way: if pigs had wings we would all be eating chicken fried pork chops. As has been commented on in previous editions of this magazine (here) and (here) SB-420 is a total disaster. It did not clarify a god damn thing. Indeed it made matters worse. So in an effort to fix their fuck up Vasconcellos and Leno are at it once again. This latest incarnation of a monkey fucking a football is called SB-1494.
Now, according to legislative counsel, this new bill would:
. . ."[R]ecast these provisions relating to the amount of marijuana [contained in SB-420] that may be possessed for personal medical purposes. The bill, instead, would provide that a qualified patient, person with an identification card, or any designated primary caregiver may possess any amount of marijuana consistent with the medical needs of that qualified patient or person with an identification card."
The operative phrase is "recast these provisions." That is political mumbo jumbo for saying "in our first attempt [SB-420] we did not clarify jack shit." And if you think that is bad, have I got news for you. This second go around these two fine legislative billiard balls have made things -- yet again (if you can believe it) -- worse.
According to legislative counsel SB-1494 would:
"[P]rovide that a qualified patient, person with an identification card, or any designated primary caregiver may possess any amount of marijuana consistent with the medical needs of that qualified patient or person with an identification card."
Real important right about here is a couple of key phrases. "[Q]ualified patient" and "consistent with the medical needs. . .."
Ok, just what do those two phrases mean? Qualified patient, according to the language of the bill, means this:
"11362.7(f) '[q]ualified patient' means a person who is entitled to the protections of Section 11362.5, but who does not have an identification card issued pursuant to this article."
Section 11362.5 is Proposition 215 by the way. So a person who has a doctor's recommendation but does not have a state issued pot card is (a) protected under the original law (Prop. 215) and (b) may possess any amount of marijuana consistent with the medical needs of that qualified patient.
Sounds good so far, yes? Well here comes the monkey wrench, the first of many. What exactly does consistent with medical needs mean? Answer: There ain't one. The phrase is completely subjective. This is not at all good for patients. It is back to the same old game of how much is enough or how much is too much? There is no definite answer. So much for clarification.
Police and prosecutors will continue to arrest and attempt to prosecute patients because the amount of weed in their possession was inconsistent, as in more, than what was medically needed. It does not matter how much either. One joint, one seed, one pound or a ton. It is, according to law enforcement, inconsistent with the medical needs of that particular patient or caregiver. Thanks Vasconcellos. Thanks Leno. Please do not do me anymore favors. I'm not sure I could live through it again.
On to another monkey wrench. Hah! I haven't forgotten there was another of them and here it comes. Under this new fiasco (SB-1494) only those with a State of California pot card are immune to arrest for possession, cultivation and/or use of medical marijuana. Here is the text:
SB-1494:
"11362.77(b) (1) A person with an identification card or a primary caregiver with an identification card shall not be subject to arrest for possessing eight ounces or less of dried marijuana per person with an identification card, and maintaining six or fewer mature or 12 or fewer immature marijuana plants per person with an identification card.
"(2) . . .
"(c) If a physician determines that the quantities specified in subdivision (b) do not meet the medical needs of the person with an identification card, that person or that person's primary caregiver with an identification card may possess an amount of marijuana consistent with those medical needs and shall not be subject to arrest for possessing that amount."
Did you read the sleight of hand? There is no provision under this new bill for a qualified patient to have the same legal right as a pot card holder. In fact, what these two nimrods have done is provide police and prosecutors with statutory probable cause for arrest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fully understand that a qualified patient cannot be prosecuted. But now, thanks to Vasconcellos and Leno, if this bill passes and is signed into law the police have statutory probable cause to arrest a qualified patient. Isn't that just fucking lovely? Aren't politicians just wonderful do-gooders? Scumbags.
But wait. What about SB-420? What does it say about qualified patients as compared to a rootin', tootin', tokin' pot card holder? Well it just so happens I have the text and will quote it for you. Hold on to your ass.
SB-420:
"11362.77(a) A qualified patient or primary caregiver may possess no more than eight ounces of dried marijuana per qualified patient. In addition, a qualified patient or primary caregiver may also maintain no more than six mature or 12 immature marijuana plants per qualified patient.
"(b) If a qualified patient or primary caregiver has a doctor's recommendation that this quantity does not meet the qualified patient' s medical needs, the qualified patient or primary caregiver may possess an amount of marijuana consistent with the patient's needs.
"(c) Counties and cities may retain or enact medical marijuana guidelines allowing qualified patients or primary caregivers to exceed the state limits set forth in subdivision (a).
"(d) Only the dried mature processed flowers of female cannabis plant or the plant conversion shall be considered when determining allowable quantities of marijuana under this section.
"(e) The Attorney General may recommend modifications to the possession or cultivation limits set forth in this section. These recommendations, if any, shall be made to the Legislature no later than December 1, 2005, and may be made only after public comment and consultation with interested organizations, including, but not limited to, patients, health care professionals, researchers, law enforcement, and local governments. Any recommended modification shall be consistent with the intent of this article and shall be based on currently available scientific research.
"(f) A qualified patient or a person holding a valid identification card, or the designated primary caregiver of that qualified patient or person, may possess amounts of marijuana consistent with this article."
As you have read the above quoted provision of SB-420 does but at the same time does not clearly state if a qualified patient and/or a pot card holder are immune from arrest. Sub-sections (a), (b) and (f) come pretty close based upon the words "may possess." That, to me, means it is legal for a person to cultivate, possess and/or use medical marijuana -- as long as the person has either a doctor's recommendation or is a certified pot card holder. Hence, nanny-nanny-boo-boo, the police can not arrest and prosecutors can not try either a qualified patient or a pot card holder.
Yeah, SB-1494 really cleared things right up ... for police and prosecutors anyway.
This bill, SB-1494, is the nothing but bad, as in god awful, news for qualified patients. It is a god send for police. Statutory probable and arrest of a qualified patient is not my idea, in any way, of clarifying Prop. 215. Prop. 215 does not need any clarification to begin with. All this bill does is give back to police the probable cause they lost when Prop. 215 was enacted by the People of the State of California. This bill needs, in the worst way, to be killed and killed now. I say, if you are a resident of the State of California, contact your assemblyman and state senator and have them cast their vote against SB-1494.
As Will Rogers said: "There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on senators."
I completely agree.
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Pipeline (page 2)
Cannabis Scrips to Calm Kids
By: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos (Fox news)
WASHINGTON - As a California pediatrician and 49-year-old mother of two teenage daughters, Claudia Jensen says pot might prove to be the preferred medical treatment for attention deficit disorder - even in adolescents.
"Why would anyone want to give their child an expensive pill - with unacceptable side effects, when he or she could just go into the backyard, pick a few leaves off a plant and make tea for him or her instead?" Jensen asked the Drug Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee earlier this month.
While some wonder whether Jensen was smoking some wacky weed herself, the clinician for low-income patients and professor to first-year medical students at the University of Southern California said her beliefs are very grounded: The drug helps ease the symptomatic mood swings, lack of focus, anxiety and irritability in people suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders like ADD and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder .
"Cannabinoids are a very viable alternative to treating adolescents with ADD and ADHD," she told Foxnews.com. "I have a lot of adult patients who swear by it."
Under California state law, physicians are allowed to recommend to patients the use of marijuana to treat illnesses, although the federal government has maintained that any use of marijuana - medicinal or otherwise - is illegal. The federal courts have ruled that physicians like Jensen cannot be prosecuted for making such recommendations.
Jensen said she regularly writes prescriptions recommending the use of marijuana for patients -particularly those suffering pain and nausea from chronic illnesses, such as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and arthritis.
She has also worked with one family of a 15-year-old - whose family had tried every drug available to help their son, who by age 13 had become a problem student diagnosed as suffering from ADHD. Under Jensen's supervision, he began marijuana treatment, settling on cannabis in food and candy form, and he has since found equilibrium and regularly attends school.
But not everyone is so high on the idea of pot for students with neurological illnesses. Subcommittee Chairman Mark Souder, R-Ind., who invited Jensen to testify after reading about her ideas in the newspaper, was hardly convinced by her testimony.
"I do believe that Dr. Jensen really wants to help her patients, but I think she is deeply misguided when she recommends marijuana to teenagers with attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity," he told Foxnews.com. "There is no serious scientific basis for using marijuana to treat those conditions, and Dr. Jensen didn't even try to present one."
Dr. Tom O'Connell, a retired chest surgeon who now works with patients at a Bay Area clinic for patients seeking medical marijuana recommendations, is working on it. He said cannabis not only helps pain, but also can treat psychological disorders. He is currently conducting a study of hundreds of his patients, whom he said he believes have been self-medicating with pot and other drugs for years, and he hopes to publish a paper on the subject soon.
"My work with cannabis patients is certainly not definitive at this point, but it strongly suggests that the precepts upon which cannabis prohibition have been based are completely spurious," O'Connell said. Worse yet, he added, the prohibition has successfully kept certain adolescents away from pot who now turn to tobacco and alcohol instead.
Jensen, who said she believes Souder invited her to testify to "humiliate me and incriminate me in some way," suggested that a growing body of evidence is being developed to back medical marijuana chiefly for chronic pain and nausea. She said it is difficult, however, for advocates like herself to get the funding and permission to conduct government-recognized tests on ADD/ADHD patients.
"Unfortunately, no pharmaceutical companies are motivated to spend the money on research, and the United States government has a monopoly on the available marijuana and research permits," she told Congress.
Studies done on behalf of the government, including the 1999 Institute of Medicine's "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," found that marijuana delivers effective THC and
other cannabinoids that serve as pain relief and nausea-control agents. But these same studies warn against the dangers of smoking marijuana and suggest other FDA-approved drugs are preferable.
"We know all too well the dangerous health risks that accompany (smoking)," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member on the subcommittee, who like Souder, was not impressed by Jensen's arguments.
"It flies in the face of responsible medicine to advocate a drug that had been known to have over 300 carcinogens and has proven to be as damaging to the lungs as cigarette smoking," added Jennifer Devallance, spokeswoman for the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.
The government points to Food and Drug Administration-approved Marinol , a THC-derived pill that acts as a stand-in for marijuana. But many critics say there are nasty side effects, and it's too expensive for the average patient.
On the other hand, Jensen and others say cannabinoids can be made into candy form, baked into food or boiled into tea. They say that despite the FDA blessing, giving kids amphetamines like Ritalin for ADD and other behavioral disorders might be more dangerous.
"Ritalin is an amphetamine - we have all of these youngsters running around on speed," said Keith Stroup, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws .
"Although it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, it's nevertheless true that cannabis is far safer and more effective than the prescription agents currently advocated for treatment of ADD-ADHD," O'Carroll said.
Stroup said if Souder's intention was to harangue Jensen, he was unsuccessful in the face of her solid and articulate testimony on April 1.
"It was a good day for her, and a good day for medical marijuana in Congress," he said.
Nick Coleman, a subcommittee spokesman, said Souder doesn't "try to humiliate people.
"But to promote medical marijuana for teenagers with ADD - he does not feel that is a sound and scientific medical practice," Coleman said.
While the issue of treating adolescents with medical marijuana is fairly new, the idea of using pot to treat chronically and terminally ill patients is not. Nine states currently have laws allowing such practices. A number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have added that they want the states to decide for themselves whether to pursue medical marijuana laws .
Among those lawmakers are Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a physician; Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.; and Barney Frank, D-Mass.
"(Rep. Paul) believes there are some legitimate applications," like for pain and nausea, said spokesman Jeff Deist. "But the real issue is that states should decide for themselves."
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Dakota Joseph Arts