Quick Hits (page 4)
Judge Busted for Buying Pot
By: Jack Moran (Mail Tribune)
Gold Hill's longtime justice of the peace will appear in Jackson County Circuit Court on marijuana possession charges, after police orchestrated a meeting in which he allegedly bought the drug.
Robert H. "Bob" King of the 400 block of Sixth Avenue in Gold Hill, faces one count of misdemeanor marijuana possession. Jackson County sheriff's deputies cited and released King last, after a traffic stop revealed he was in possession of one-eighth ounce of marijuana, Sheriff Mike Winters said.
King was unavailable for comment. A woman who answered the telephone at his home, which is also the number for Justice Court, said King was "on vacation."
Winters said an investigation was launched when a drug informant told Jackson County Narcotics Enforcement Team agents about previous drug sales made to King.
The informant wore a body wire -- an electronic recording device -- during a meeting with King where the judge allegedly purchased marijuana, Winters said.
Police allowed King to leave the home before pulling over his vehicle a short time later. Winters said deputies confronted King about the drugs, at which point he "relinquished" the marijuana.
Winters said his department's use of the body wire was necessary to prove King was involved in drugs on a misdemeanor level.
"This is a judge we're dealing with," Winters said. "We do use a lot of body wire, and felt it was necessary (because King is) a public official."
King has worked the past 26 years as Gold Hill's elected justice of the peace. In 2002, he easily won a fifth six-year term on the bench.
The judgeship is a county position. Dave Kanner, Jackson County's deputy administrator, said there is "no administrative way" to remove King from office because of criminal allegations.
"He's elected, so there's not a whole heck of a lot we can do," Kanner said.
King also serves as the appointed municipal court judge for the city of Butte Falls. Mayor Steve Harvey said Wednesday that city officials were unaware of the citation, but that they would discuss the matter and see if any city policy addresses the situation.
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Tan 'n' Trends
Growin' Our Own (page 4)
Medical Pot Users Win Key Ruling
By: Henry Weinstein (Times Staff Writer)
The U.S. can't prosecute patients who use it on the advice of a physician and obtain the drug at no charge, an appeals court panel rules.
People who use marijuana for medical purposes won a victory from a federal appeals court that ruled they cannot be prosecuted by the federal government so long as they grow their own or obtain pot from other growers without charge.
The 2-1 decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco would protect many medical marijuana users from prosecution in California and six other Western states -- Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- that have laws approving the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
"This is huge. This essentially makes Prop. 215 federal law in California," said Dale Gieringer, a coauthor of the proposition, which legalized medical use of marijuana in California.
The measure, approved by voters in 1996, was the nation's first such law. Despite its passage, federal officials have pursued a number of cases against medical marijuana users, growers and distributors in the state.
Justice Department officials declined to comment on the ruling; legal experts expect them to appeal further. But the decision marks the second court defeat for the federal government this year in its running battle against the medical marijuana movement.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a 9th Circuit ruling that said federal officials could not threaten to revoke the prescription rights of doctors who approved marijuana use for their patients.
Although statistics are unreliable on the subject, both supporters and opponents of medical marijuana agree that there are tens of thousands of such users in California.
The ruling involved one of the most hotly debated areas of constitutional law: the power of the federal government to intervene in matters that traditionally have been handled by state and local governments. Through the 1990s, conservatives successfully argued in court for limiting federal power. But with a Republican administration in Washington, liberals are now using the same arguments in attempts to shield state laws they favor.
Under the U.S. Constitution, routine law enforcement matters are normally handled by the states; the federal government can be involved only if the alleged criminal conduct involves federal jurisdiction.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and other federal officials, including Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, have pursued marijuana cases, saying they have jurisdiction because drugs are sold in interstate commerce.
Last year, based on that rationale, federal drug agents seized marijuana used by a number of individuals throughout California, including Diane Monson of Oroville, who smokes the drug to treat chronic, debilitating back pain.
Monson and Angel M. Raich of Oakland, who uses marijuana for a variety of serious medical problems, including an inoperable brain tumor, sued Ashcroft in federal court. They asked for a court order barring the government from confiscating their marijuana or taking any other action against them.
Both women got letters from their doctors saying marijuana helps alleviate their symptoms. That protects them against prosecution by state and local officials. But both women had a "very real fear" that their marijuana would be seized by federal agents, said Oakland attorney Robert Raich, who is married to Angel.
Monson grows her own marijuana. Raich is unable to do so, according to court papers. Two people identified only as John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2 grow it for her.
Lawyers for the two women argued that since they used the drug solely for their own medicinal purposes, and no money changed hands, their actions did not involve interstate commerce. That would mean the federal government had no power to prosecute them.
A federal district judge ruled against them in March, saying that despite "the gravity" of their need for marijuana, the Constitution did not protect them against federal prosecution. But the appeals court majority sided with the women.
"The intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician is, in fact, different from drug trafficking," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the majority. He was joined by Judge Richard A. Paez.
The federal government has the power to pass laws against trafficking in drugs, Pregerson added, but "the cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and not for exchange or distribution is not properly characterized as commercial or economic activity."
The dissenting judge -- C. Arlen Beam, who normally sits on the 8th Circuit in the Midwest -- argued that even if the women did not pay for their marijuana, they were using a "crop which could be sold in the marketplace, and which is also being used for medicinal purposes in place of other drugs which would have to be purchased in the marketplace." For that reason, Washington can be involved, he said.
Monson was elated by the ruling. "How wonderful! That is very good news indeed," she said. She smokes about two marijuana cigarettes a day, which, in combination with yoga and other exercise, alleviates her back pain, she said.
Pregerson and Paez, two of the 9th Circuit's more liberal judges, based their ruling on two Supreme Court decisions about the principles of federalism that are hallmarks of the court's conservative majority.
One case involved a federal law that banned guns in and around schools. The other allowed federal prosecutions of certain types of violent crimes against women. In both cases, the high court struck down the federal laws on the grounds that the statutes went beyond Washington's power to regulate interstate commerce.
Although many liberals opposed those rulings, the current decision "shows that federalism is not just for political conservatives," said Boston University law professor Randy E. Barnett, who represented Monson and Raich in the appeals court.
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Pipeline (page 4)
Let States Make this Choice
By: Unknown
The court could clear up doubts about the power of prosecutors to harass medical marijuana patients.
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear a case about medical marijuana should clear the air in a controversy over the power of the federal government to intervene in states' medical decisions.
In June, the court agreed to hear the Bush administration's appeal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Ashcroft v. Raich. A panel of the appeals court ruled 2-1 in December that the federal government overstepped its constitutional authority in raiding patients whose medical marijuana activities were noncommercial and did not cross state lines.
The ruling said that "cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and not for exchange or distribution is not properly characterized as commercial or economic activity" and is thus outside federal jurisdiction.
We hope we see a trend of federalism here, with states being free to decide medical marijuana issues without federal interference.
Last summer, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that rejected the Justice Department's claim that the Controlled Substances Act empowered federal authorities to punish physicians who recommend marijuana to patients. The Raich case was a second victory for medical marijuana proponents, but only in 9th Circuit states that permit medicinal use of marijuana: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
The significance of the high court's granting review on Raich is that patients across the country could be insulated from federal raids, arrests and prosecutions when they legally use marijuana as medicine under state laws. It's possible the high court could reverse the 9th Circuit ruling. Patients still would be protected by state law, but that could be a thin shield to wield in costly defenses against federal prosecutors.
The judge who dissented in the 9th Circuit ruling based his disagreement on a 1940s interstate commerce case in which the Supreme Court said Congress had the power to regulate what a farmer grew on his own farm as a way to support the price regulation system. The farmer in question was not just feeding his produce to his family and himself, but also to his livestock, which he sold in interstate commerce.
The Raich case has no connection to interstate commerce. The seeds, soil, water, fertilizer, even the lumber used in the cultivating process, originated and remained within California. Also, it is a stretch to say that "commerce" is involved. The medicine in the case of one plaintiff is grown by the patient for whom it has been recommended by a physician. The lead plaintiff gets her medicine from two caregivers who grow it legally under state law and give it to her without charge.
Diseases such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis and afflictions such as glaucoma and chronic pain don't discriminate geographically or on the basis of patients' political beliefs. Political conservatives and liberals should find common cause in pushing for medical marijuana solutions made in their state legislatures rather than by federal bureaucrats pushing electoral agendas.
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