Quick Hits (page 5)
Appeals Court Orders State to Surrender Limbaugh's Medical Records
By: Jill Barton (AP)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- An appeals court has ordered prosecutors to turn Rush Limbaugh's medical records over to the courts and keep them sealed until further review.
The court also ruled that the American Civil Liberties Union can join the conservative talk show host in fighting to keep the documents private, creating an unlikely alliance in the case.
Prosecutors say their investigation is stalled until they are able to review the medical records, which they seized in November. They obtained search warrants for the files after learning Limbaugh received more than 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors in six months, at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion.
Limbaugh's attorneys argue that the seizure violated Limbaugh's privacy and that the investigation was politically motivated. No criminal charges have been filed against Limbaugh.
The ACLU joined the case Monday in support of the claim that Limbaugh's constitutional right to privacy has been violated.
State Attorney Barry Krischer has repeatedly insisted that Limbaugh's rights have been protected. A spokesman, Mike Edmondson, said Tuesday that investigators have followed state laws since beginning their investigation last year, after Limbaugh's former maid told them she was his longtime drug supplier.
Courts have ruled twice before to keep the records sealed pending appeals, though prosecutors had a brief opportunity to review the documents on Dec. 22.
"The state's seizure of Mr. Limbaugh's private medical records without following the due process defined in Florida law is a threat to everyone's fundamental privacy right," his lawyer, Roy Black, said in a statement.
Black has said the records will only show that Limbaugh suffered from a serious medical condition.
Limbaugh admitted his addiction to prescription painkillers in October, saying it stemmed from severe back pain. He took a five-week leave from his afternoon radio show to enter a rehabilitation program.
The appeals court ordered prosecutors to surrender the records to a circuit court and keep them sealed until it rules otherwise.
Growin' Our Own (page 5)
Britain Poised to Approve Medicine Derived From Marijuana
By: David Tuller (NY Times)
A marijuana-based medication for people suffering from multiple sclerosis and severe pain is expected to be approved for sale in Britain early this year, British officials say.
The drug, Sativex, developed by GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company, is a liquid extract from marijuana grown by the company under license from the government. Developed to be sprayed under the tongue, it would be the first drug in recent decades to include all the components of the cannabis plant, advocates of medical marijuana say.
The British agency that regulates pharmaceuticals does not like to discuss potential drugs before they are approved. The country's Home Office, which oversees laws and policies on controlled substances, has indicated that Sativex is likely to receive approval.
Alan Macfarlane, a chief inspector at the Home Office, said the results of the clinical trials for Sativex looked promising. "I'm hoping it will be dealt with in the next two to three months, and I will be surprised if it doesn't succeed," he said.
Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant, signed a deal with GW last year to market Sativex in Britain and possibly other countries. "What's likely to happen is that the U.K. authorization will lead quite quickly to European Union authorization," Mr. Macfarlane said. "I think it's going to be a little troubling for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, given the national climate about marijuana."
GW also hopes eventually to obtain regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration. But the review process in the United States is expected to take much longer, and the policy against marijuana use, in any form, is much more prohibitive.
Further, the Office of National Drug Control Policy says that marijuana abuse is associated with health problems as diverse as respiratory infections, impaired memory and learning, anxiety and panic attacks.
Marijuana proponents challenge these claims, saying the plant is far less toxic than many of the medicines it would replace. In any event, they say, approval of medical marijuana in Britain should lead to broader acceptance of the plant's therapeutic uses.
"If it turns out to be effective," said Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the California Medical Association, "it's going to be a very positive development, akin in terms of medicine to moving from the crudeness of smoking opium to the use of Demerol and morphine."
The Food and Drug Administration has allowed people to import personal supplies of pharmaceutical drugs that are not approved in the United States, and medical marijuana advocates are already planning to pressure the authorities to allow patients to obtain Sativex.
But Will Glaspy, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said it was unlikely that someone could lawfully import an extract from a drug like marijuana, although he did not know specifically about Sativex. "If it's a controlled substance here, it would be illegal to bring it into the country," Mr. Glaspy said.
But some advocates for overhauling marijuana laws say the British approval of Sativex will bolster their case. Dr. Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a research and education organization in Sarasota, Fla., said, "To the extent that GW gets approval, it supports the credibility of what we have been saying about the medical benefits of marijuana, and it causes people to question the credibility of the government."
Others are concerned about the government's response.
Bruce Mirkin, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group in Washington, said, "The government could use this as an excuse to say, 'See, we have this fabulous pharmaceutical substitute; you don't need this nasty weed anymore.' "
Drug companies have already developed a handful of drugs derived from isolated elements of the marijuana plant.
The most widely known marijuana drug now available is Marinol, which the F.D.A. approved in capsule form in 1985. Marinol is essentially a synthetic version of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana, and is used to treat chemotherapy-associated nausea and AIDS-related wasting and appetite loss.
But THC is only one of dozens of cannabinoids, the substances that invest the marijuana plant with its properties. And because Marinol must be absorbed through the digestive system, it takes longer to begin working than smoked marijuana. Many patients also say that Marinol is far less effective in easing their symptoms.
Sativex has been designed to overcome those shortcomings. Because it is sprayed under the tongue, the drug is absorbed through mucus membranes, a quicker and more reliable route of action than swallowing a pill.
Moreover, Sativex includes not only THC but substantial levels of the cannabinoid cannabidiol, which is believed to have anti-anxiety and other therapeutic properties - as well as dozens of other marijuana ingredients that GW researchers believe augment the drug's medicinal benefits. The company also maintains that Sativex, when taken properly, does not cause the kind of intoxication that people routinely experience from smoking marijuana.
In clinical trials, Sativex provided some relief from symptoms of multiple sclerosis and from pain caused by nerve damage. The company is also testing Sativex and other marijuana products for treatment of schizophrenia, head injuries, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions.
Dr. Geoffrey Guy, the chairman of GW, said he had founded the company to develop marijuana-based medicines after realizing in the 1990's how many ordinary people with serious illnesses were being charged with marijuana possession. "This was Middle England showing up in court," he said.
Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School and a longtime marijuana proponent, said Sativex would be an improvement over Marinol. "But many or quite possibly most people would still find smoking marijuana to be quicker, more effective and cheaper," he said.
Dr. Grinspoon worries that what he calls the pharmaceuticalization of marijuana - the advent of Sativex and related drugs - could weaken public support for easing laws on the possession and use of the plant.
But the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based group that seeks to overhaul drug laws, sees any increase in awareness of the benefits of marijuana as likely to advance the debate.
"What's happening is that people are appreciating the broader value of cannabis in human society," said Dr. Ethan Nadelmann, the alliance's executive director. "It's a remarkable plant with remarkable properties."
Pipeline (page 5)
Placer County to Seek Lawsuit Dismissal
By: Ryan McCarthy (Auburn Journal)
Placer County [California] will ask a federal judge Monday to dismiss the lawsuit filed by a former Loomis couple over a 1998 search of their home for marijuana an event they contend led them to bankruptcy, selling their home and divorcing.
Dentist Michael Baldwin, 40, and his former wife, Georgia Chacko, claim deputies used excessive force in the search, an assertion the county denies. Sheriff's deputies said they found 146 marijuana plants at the home. The couple said the marijuana found at their Moss Lane home was legal under Prop. 215, the medical marijuana measure California voters passed in 1996.
Deputy county counsel David Huskey said Friday the United States District Court in Sacramento has already dismissed four of eight civil cases filed against the Sheriff's Department marijuana eradication team over searches it conducted.
Those dismissals came even though judges see a duty to give plaintiffs every benefit of the doubt so that cases can go before juries, he said.
"They're hard to win," Huskey said of dismissals.
Oakland attorney Paul Turley, who is representing Baldwin and Chacko, said he expects the request for dismissal to be denied.
"Counties in these cases always seek dismissal," Turley said. "I think we're going to prevail."
A criminal cultivation charge filed after the search at the Loomis home was dismissed while a mistrial was declared on possession for sales charges when the jury deadlocked. The District Attorney's office did not re-file charges.
Baldwin said that within four months of the September 1998 arrest his dental practice in Rocklin no longer had any patients because of negative publicity.
He was forced to file bankruptcy, added Baldwin, who said at one time his practice grossed about $500,000 a year. The dentist said he also had to sell his home to avoid foreclosure. Thoroughbred horses on the property were sold as well, Baldwin said, along with pets including exotic birds. Because of his ruined reputation and financial ruin, the marriage deteriorated and ended in divorce, Baldwin said.
Deputy county counsel Huskey said, "Those are his allegations. We don't know them to be true."
The motion for dismissal addresses only liability, Huskey said. If the federal court finds the county isn't liable for the search, damages claimed by Baldwin in connection with bankruptcy and other matters are not at issue, Huskey said.
"The evidence isn't sufficient to state a claim," the deputy county counsel said.
Baldwin said that one of the deputies said during the search that, "There is no Prop. 215 in Placer County." Baldwin referred to "hostility to Prop. 215 endemic to the Placer County Sheriff's Department."
Deputy Ron Goodpaster stated in a declaration filed last November that Baldwin asserted he had a right to grow more than 100 marijuana plans because of a doctor's recommendation complying with Prop. 215.
Goodpaster said he responded, "That might fly in the Bay Area but not here."
The comment was intended to let Baldwin know he had violated California marijuana cultivation laws and that officers were not going to just turn around and leave, Goodpaster said.
The deputy said he is willing to comply with Prop. 215 but that boundaries of the law were not clear when Baldwin's home was searched.
"There is a substantial danger of abuse by persons purporting to cultivate marijuana for medical reasons but actually growing it for sale," Goodpaster added.
Deputy Jeff Potter was also involved in the 1998 search of the Loomis home. In a November declaration, Potter said outcomes of jury trials involving Baldwin as well as Steve Kubby, former Libertarian candidate for governor, convinced him it's difficult to convict marijuana growers who have doctor's recommendations for medical use of the drug.
"Even if I believe that probable cause exists to arrest the grower for sales because of the number of plants, presence of objects associated with sales and so forth, I am unlikely to arrest unless the District Attorney's Office indicates to me that it will prosecute the case," Potter said.
The deputy added that when Baldwin was arrested "I did not then and still do not now believe that 146 plants is consistent with medical use of marijuana."
Placer County District Attorney Brad Fenocchio said Friday that many issues are considered when deciding whether to file cases, including what a reasonable jury will do. It may be more difficult now to convict someone possessing substantial amounts of marijuana and doctor's authorization for the drug than it was 10 years ago, the District Attorney said.
"That does impact officers," Fenocchio said. "We're going to listen to what officers say on a case-to-case basis."
The D.A.'s office considers not just the quantity of the drug but other factors as well -- such as scales, packaging of the drug and other issues normally associated with marijuana dealing, Fenocchio said.
Medical marijuana convictions appeals assistance in California. Recorded medical conditions only, with or without a doctor's recommendation. For details contact William McPike.
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