Marijuana Caregivers Can Be Prosecuted for Dealing Drugs

[Jim Finnel]

A person supplying marijuana to a patient that has approval to use it can be prosecuted for dealing drugs, according to California Supreme Court rule on Monday. The decision further narrows the options for medical marijuana users. In January, the court ruled employers could fire medical marijuana users who tested positive for the drug.

The case comes from the 2003 arrest of a Santa Cruz County man. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Roger Mentch, 53, after they found hundreds of marijuana plants in his home. Mentch told them that he was a medical marijuana patient and gave or sold some of his plants to other patients. He was charged with cultivation and possession and sentenced to three years probation, a decision he appealed on several points, including that jurors were not properly instructed about medical marijuana caregivers.

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, giving ill people the right to use marijuana legally as long as they have a prescription from a doctor, but the law did not outline how medicinal marijuana could be distributed.

“Ideally, it (the ruling) won't have a tremendous effect. Patients will now increasingly get their medication through collectives and cooperatives,” said Joseph Elford, a lawyer for Americans for Safe Access, a pro-medical marijuana group.

Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice, who is representing Mentch said the court ruling is unfortunate because it makes it harder for medicinal marijuana patients who have a valid medical recommendation to obtain pot.

“There's no direction in the law, no explanation as to how people are supposed to get their medicine if they can't grow it themselves. It's an unworkable situation,” Rice said.


News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: eFluxMedia
Author: Anna Boyd
Copyright: 2008 eFluxMedia
Contact: EfluxMedia
Website: Court: Marijuana Caregivers Can Be Prosecuted for Dealing Drugs

 

[Keith Lake]

Let's hope this is an over interpretation of the ruling. I need to read a couple different opinions on the ruling before I make this conclusion.

It would be a major blow to the cause, if in fact caregiver status was invalidated.

This is the exact point Racefan was making on another thread about people using the medical protection laws to cover their dealing. This dude had several hundred plants, what are the odds he was a legit caregiver. This might actually be the guy racefan said he knew that was in fact dealing under the guise of medical protection.

 

[Jim Finnel]

i recently had a conversation with someone who will be moving to cali in a few months. the purpose is to grow legal medical marijuana, except . . . its going to take advantage of the system and motivated by greed. the only thing legal will be the paperwork.

for hours i tried to explain the hard work, sacrifice, jail time the people have put into getting these flawed but needed laws where they were. i talked about the sick and sometimes dying patients that need this medicine and that people like him are just the sort of examples the movements enemies are looking for.

he cares not. he hopes the marijuana remains illegal so that he can get rich by hiding behind the weak. he has lost my respect. i don't want him busted because it will be another negative news story. but i curse the ground he grows in.

 

[wordsworm]

"he cares not. he hopes the marijuana remains illegal so that he can get rich by hiding behind the weak. he has lost my respect. i don't want him busted because it will be another negative news story. but i curse the ground he grows in."

Isn't that the American dream and the thrust of most corporations?

If these people, the people who *are* hiding behind the medical marijuana claim didn't provide the service that they do, where would the folks without a medical prescription get their weed? From organized crime? While you, being a medical user yourself (I seem to remember you saying that at some point) would like all the non-medical users/dealers/growers to stay out of the fray and not use the medical marijuana defense, the fact remains that for the healthy consumers out there, they're providing a service.

Why should only the needs of the sick be protected and provided for? There are people who are perfectly healthy (I'm not one of them altogether, nor am I a patient more than 1-2 times per year). The truth is that marijuana helps me. It helps me because I often try to distance myself from my emotions. While most of the time this is a good thing - I don't get really angry, I'm able to forget about emotional pain which allows me to accomplish the things that are important to me rather than just sit at home feeling sorry for myself - but sometimes there's a problem that's deep down inside all that, and it brings me down. I'm not really even aware of the problem, except that I feel bad. I can then light up a reefer (when I'm in a country where they don't kill you for doing so - been 2 years since my last good puff) and suddenly the things that are inside of me become clear, and sometimes what I need to do to make myself feel better also becomes clear.

You know, for all the folks that say it makes you lazy, my x-girlfriend can tell you many times of how I'd get high, sometimes in the middle of a freezing Montreal winter. The reason I'd do this is that the marijuana would make me realize that I was suffering from depression brought on by, essentially, being couped up (aka cabin fever). I'd come back, and I'd be feeling great again. Or, going along the Lachine Canal on my bicycle - when I was high on MJ, I felt like I was flying - like somehow I was able to find that fine line of being able to push myself really hard on the bike without getting my heartrate up too fast (which makes you get tired fast).

MJ is great. It's not just great for sick people, it's also great for the rest of us. If a few people want to make an income, while risking their home, their liberty, and make a few bucks doing it, then I just have to say thank-you for doing something for those of us who aren't sick. We're people too - even if no state has us on the books as legitimate users. We need it - I need it.

What I would love to see is something akin to what they've done in Belgium and Australia - allow me to grow my own. OK, so, I'd want more plants than what Belgium allows (just 1), but the truth is I can make decent hash out of the leaf which gives me a nice low-flying buzz, and I can get those nice highs off of those delightful buds. At the end of its budgiving cycle I harvest, I can maybe let it go to seed and eat those wonderful seeds which have so much goodness in them, it's right off the dietary charts.

So, while I appreciate how important weed is to you, and how much you'd like to protect that stash and the growers behind it while cutting off the people who aren't sick, I myself protest. I protest because the pursuit of happiness is something all of us should have available to us.

My advice is this: you are friends with this guy. But then you got judgmental on him for wanting money and wanting to have a potential defense that will keep him out of jail. Why not just understand that what he's doing isn't personal against you, and that it's not he who is trying to prevent you from accessing the herb - it's the turds in the White House and the churches. Take your angst out on them, amend your friendship and apologize. Good friends are rare - most of them are just good acquaintances. Burning up a friendship over his natural desires is really a waste.

Regards.

 

[Racefan]

I agree wwith some of your points wordsworm except this one...

If these people, the people who *are* hiding behind the medical marijuana claim didn't provide the service that they do, where would the folks without a medical prescription get their weed? From organized crime?

These people who are hiding behind medical marijuana are part of "organized crime". They are part of the black market. They are going to screw it up for medical users. if a person wants to get high I have no problem with it. but when "illegal growers" hiding behind med/mar become such a nuisance that I lose my right to my medicine i will be pissed. I will have no one but the commercial and recreational users, who felt a need to lie about medical neccessity just to satisfy their right to make money or smoke weed without worry, to blame. The ones who are ging to pay the price are the medical patients, not the commercial or recreational ones. I'll defend a persons right to get high with all the passion i have. but when you lie and jeapordise my medical rights I will say something. If you have to lie to justify your actions then what your doing is wrong. PERIOD!
And to answer questions....no, the person in the article who was busted is not the guy I know. I know about 30 commercial growers. 3 hide behind medical laws. The other 27 feel the same way i do. Why lie and hurt your brother? Prop 215 was never put in place for people to make money.

 

[Racefan]

By the way...this ruling hurts 1000's of real patients. Up here there are no collectives or clubs. the nearest is about 2 hours away. The local LEO has sworn to destroy any club that opens and they have done so with federal help.

 

[wordsworm]

"These people who are hiding behind medical marijuana are part of "organized crime". "

I wouldn't call a person who does that organized crime any more than you would of someone who does grow medical marijuana for many patients, who is also a target of the feds/local authorities.

When I talk about organized crime, I'm talking guns and big bullies who wield them. Those folks are far different from the ones we're talking about - and if they're one and the same, then I detest them as much as anyone. Of course, that might be just because I hate bullies (ie, police, mafia) as much as I do guns. The folks who are growing for the general public, and who do not participate in violent crimes but use the medical marijuana defense I feel no angst against. Again, I'm not a medical user - certainly I can sympathize with their needs. Nonetheless, I also feel sympathy for those who grow for the general public and get busted.

 

[wordsworm]

accidental duplicate

 

[Keith Lake]

You know snitching is also a way people protect themselves from prosectution but most of us agree this is the lowest thing that someone can do. I think hiding behind the medical defense, particularly for large grows, is a close second

I've got no problem with illegal growers taking risks for profits and I agree with wordsworm in that otherwise there would be no other way of distribution for the non-medical patients.

Where we disagree is that it's wrong that some of these growers are risking the gains made by the movement by claiming a medical defense where there is none.

These repeated actions harm the public's opinion about cannabis

I believe strongly that the end game is full legalization, and that is one reason, (in addition to the legit medical need), why the medical protection gains must be preserved

This puts me on the other side of the argument from those that want (or tolerate) a continutation of the prohibition laws; which skews the market by inflating the cost and supressing the availability for all.

 

[wordsworm]

I wonder how many of those people who voted for the props to allow medical MJ to go to through were actually thinking of themselves. I mean, people like me, but Americans in the applicable states. How many of those people also felt compassion for the sick? That being said, they have done something in the hopes of gaining a freedom.

A lot of folks don't want to register as medical users for the simple fact that it does make them a target. Where, then, are they to get their medicine? The only place is from the kind of folks that are being derided here at 420. So, how many folks out there do purchase their weed from these growers who aren't considered care providers? Who is to say that they're not care providers at say 10% for the ill? We don't have statistics to even check.

What will the ultimate outcome of all this be? Eventually there will be an upsurge in these kinds of incidents. It will force lawmakers to actually find a way of making the lines between illegal growing and legal growing more distinct.*

 

[hood1]

Replace the cops that do not respect the law and a vote by the people they do not work for the feds but the people.

Give me liberty or give me death!