cannabisnews.com: Putting a Face on Feds' War on Medicinal Pot





Putting a Face on Feds' War on Medicinal Pot
Posted by CN Staff on July 17, 2003 at 15:10:40 PT
By Sue Hutchison, Mercury News
Source: Mercury News
The photo of Betty Breadth, beaming and wearing a scarlet feather boa, belies the tale of a middle-aged mom with cancer who had to learn how to roll a joint -- and smoked only outside on her deck -- so she could endure the excruciating final stages of her illness.The Kodak shot of a grinning Jo Daly doesn't tell the story of how she, a former San Francisco police commissioner, found that marijuana was the only drug that could ease intense nausea from chemotherapy treatments that failed to save her life.
You would never know to look at the picture of Margo Karow, laughing and holding her baby, that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer during her pregnancy. The photo barely hints at the truth that smoking pot was the only way she could stay well enough to enjoy the first months of her child's life before she lost her own at the age of 31. Best line of defense But these pictures and the montage of photos that sprawls over an entire office wall at the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz may prove to be the pot collective's best line of defense against the feds who seized its marijuana crop last September and hope to shut the group down. The pictures are the most powerful evidence of the petty and merciless federal government policy that treats desperately ill people like criminals and robs them of a way to face their deaths with dignity.U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said at a hearing in San Jose this month that he was moved by the dying declarations that WAMM members had submitted as testimony, and he will decide soon whether to temporarily restrain Drug Enforcement Administration agents from closing the collective. But he may not rule soon enough to relieve the agony of those who are barely hanging on.There couldn't be a more pathetic example of the ``war on drugs'' than persecuting the group of professors, housewives, architects, musicians, church deacons, homeless people, day laborers and community leaders who belong to WAMM. City, county support The decade-old collective's founders, Valerie and Michael Corral, operate with the full support of city and county law enforcement officials -- hardly the tactics of street drug dealers. They dispense a weekly allotment of homegrown marijuana to WAMM's 250 members, who present doctors' recommendations that have been carefully verified. More than 80 percent are terminally ill, and many never smoked pot before discovering that it was the only way to bear the ravages of cancer and AIDS.But that didn't stop DEA agents from raiding the Corrals' home and confiscating their marijuana plants.It's too bad the agents didn't have to file past WAMM's memorial wall of photos and listen to the stories behind every one. Maybe they would have had a better understanding of the legal rights that WAMM's lawyers have presented to Judge Fogel -- the right of individuals to control the circumstances of their own deaths.The Corrals have managed to build a community among people who had been isolated in pain and infirmity. They got help from their city council and county sheriff, and all of them conspired to make it easier for their terminally ill neighbors to face mortality.Is this the community the war on drugs is being waged against? Tell that to the friends and relatives of Betty Breadth, Jo Daly, Margo Karow and all the others whose photos are tacked up on WAMM's memorial wall. Tell that to the friends and relatives of those whose pictures will be on the wall soon. Tell that to the people who want to feel a little peace and grace in the very last days of their lives.Sue Hutchison's column appears Wednesdays and Fridays. Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)Author: Sue Hutchison, Mercury NewsPublished:  July 16, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Jose Mercury NewsContact: letters sjmercury.comWebsite: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/Related Articles & Web Site:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/States' Rights Tested in Marijuana Court Battles http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16850.shtmlJudge Seeks Help From Pot Advocates http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16779.shtmlProponents Say DEA Raid on Pot Farm was Illegalhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16774.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 18, 2003 at 10:14:47 PT
Small Editorial from SFC: Misplaced Priorities
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/18/ED109213.DTL 
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