cannabisnews.com: Feds Bust Medical Pot Patients In Courtroom Feds Bust Medical Pot Patients In Courtroom Posted by CN Staff on January 17, 2004 at 12:59:07 PT By Ann Harrison, AlterNet Source: AlterNet California medical marijuana activists are outraged over the arrest last week of two medical marijuana patients who face potential life sentences on federal drug charges after being turned over by local authorities. David Davidson, of Oakland, California and his partner Cynthia Blake, of Red Bluff, California were arrested in a state courtroom in Corning, California on January 13 as they were seeking to dismiss state charges of marijuana cultivation and distribution. Davidson and Blake, both 53, have doctor's recommendations to grow and consume medical marijuana under California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215). While their defense attorneys were meeting in the judge's chambers to discuss the case with Tehama County assistant district attorney Lynn Strom, Strom announced that she was dropping the state charges because Davidson and Blake were being arrested in the courtroom on a federal indictment. One of the major flaws of California's medical marijuana law is that it does not specify how many plants a patient can grow or how much marijuana they can possess. Each county or city sets its own guidelines and law enforcement around the state has widely ranging interpretations of how much marijuana patients should have. The Sacramento U.S. Attorneys office did not return calls seeking comment on the case. But Tehama County assistant district attorney Jonathan Skillman argues that Davidson and Blake were growing too much medical marijuana for their personal use. Skillman said prosecutors came to this conclusion after a raid on Davidson and Blake's homes allegedly netted 1,803 plants and over 60 pounds of "processed marijuana." "He had plans to supply the entire West Coast," Stillman claimed. "It is not in the realm of peronal use." But Davidson says prosecutors inflated the number of plants seized, which he says is reflected in the charges. He and Blake have been charged with manufacturing more than 100 marijuana plants and conspiracy to cultivate more than 1,000 marijuana plants. The first charge carries a five- to 40-year prison sentence. The second is punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison. Davidson said Cynthia Blake was growing 33 plants when the Tehama County sheriff's deputies raided her home in July. Skillman acknowledges that the county has no official plant limit for medical marijuana patients. But prosecutors used this information to secure a warrant to raid Davidson's house in Oakland, where he said he grew about 400 plants, mostly single leaf cuttings. Oakland patients are permitted by local ordinance to grow 72 mature plants and 32 square feet of marijuana garden canopy. In last year's highly publicized federal case of Oakland medical marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal, jurors declined to include cuttings in the count of mature plants. As with that case, Davidson and Blake will likely be barred from arguing that their marijuana was for medical purposes since federal law does not recognized Prop. 215. 'A Spiteful Investigation' Davidson contends that his lawyers were winning his case in state court, which prompted Strom to turn it over to the federal prosecutors. Skillman denies this charge and says there was nothing improper about how Davidson and Blake were arrested. Davidson disagrees. "Our attorneys were lured into the judge's chambers and as soon as the doors were closed, the deputies took us in a car as fast as they could all the way to Sacramento where we spent four hours chained in the county jail and held 24 hours before we could speak to counsel," Davidson said. "Now I'm facing 10 to 15 years in prison and I'm 53 years old. It's unbelievable." Steph Sherer, executive director of the national medical marijuana coalition, Americans for Safe Access, disputed the allegation that Davidson and Blake possessed 60 pounds of processed marijuana. Sherer says discovery in the case indicates that prosecutors weighed sticks, stems, leaf cuttings and even root balls to arrive at the 60-pound figure – a tactic employed by some investigators to inflate the weight of seized marijuana. "This appears to be a spiteful investigation on behalf of the DA, paid for by the taxpayers of California, and if Strom would like to keep her job, she should respect the laws of the state," said Sherer. "If she did not believe this was a medical case she should have taken it to state court, and not handed over two citizens of California to the federal government for a 10-year mandatory sentence." Sherer adds that Davidson and Blake's cases fall under a recent ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that if the marijuana is not purchased, transported across state lines, or used non-medically, the federal government has no jurisdiction to prosecute medical marijuana patients in California and other states. Davidson, who says he's never been arrested or sold marijuana, is currently free on a $50,000 federal and $20,000 state bail, as is Clark. "I've worked my whole life as a retail business owner and I was set for semi-retirement and now I'm ruined," Davidson says. "I am nearly flat broke and I will be before this is done." Ann Harrison is a freelance reporter working in the Bay Area.URL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17591Source: AlterNet (US)Author: Ann Harrison, AlterNetPublished: January 17, 2004Copyright: 2004 Independent Media InstituteContact: letters alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/Related Article & Web Site:Americans For Safe Accesshttp://www.safeaccessnow.org/Couple Busted for Pot is Turned Over To Fedshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18149.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #8 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 08:59:57 PT Breeze I'll remove the one that isn't spaced. Matt Elrod tried to fix the problem with double spacing a while ago but he couldn't figure it out so we have to double space. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by breeze on January 18, 2004 at 01:26:35 PT who said the news was free? duplicate post For some reason, I have to double space for this site to format what I write. I apologize!!!I pay for my news everytime I pay my bill for television access as well as internet access.I pay for my newspapers by having to read the ads. I pay for the BIG news channels by having to watch ads. I am constantly inudated(sp) with corporations trying to convince me that I should buy this particular brand of shampoo,razor, or car.Life is short, too short to have to watch idiots parade up and down the channel hawking their goods and selling their services. Hence, people are annoyed at the spam and pop up ads- but those sites are paid for by advertisers. At some point, the papers, and television companies bow to the advertiser because they are paying the bills. Is it not obvious that our nation is ruled by money? The current elections are even generated by this need of dollars to supply advertising for the candidates. How many times have you heard someone say "Who is Kucinich?" He doesn't have the money to buy the television companies. And that is how our leaders are chosen, not by who is the man with a plan of salvation, but who is the criminal with the biggest wallet.People are driven by compulsion and greenbacks$$$. These two things decide who is going to be the boss, because most people who are going to vote for dean, or any other candidate is simply doing so because someone else they know is going to vote for 'em. People don't have the time to research candidates, they are frequently too busy doing something else, like work for instance. If they have any free time at all, its spent melting their brains in front of the boobtube. And by research, I mean that Kucinich isn't on every channel night and day, and he hasn't paid enough to the news channels to do so. If you notice, news channels have hawked who they desire to presidential candidate for months- without the ads the candidate himself pays for. The newsies decided who they wanted long ago, seeking the individual that will play to the tune of CORPORATE AMERIKA!!!!If you want to truly get back at the media, watch PBS or FSTV, buy a magazine, or newspaper- write to the station in your neighborhood, call em up and tell them you want the truth, not what they "think" is the truth. Encourage friends to do so.You might think that this does not work, but it does. You have to become a pest. You have to constantly be in their ears and in their face. If you want changes, you have to demand them, not ask for them. If you want to make a difference you have to go to church and talk to strangers on the street. You litterally have to shout it from the mountain tops and from the trenches.You have to light the fires under the feet of community leaders, get them involved and made aware of the situation. Change is not easy for people to come too, so you have to take it to them. Thats why television is not just entertainment, its a way of life for many. Talk to everyone, I mean every single person that you can spend five minutes in conversation with about what you desire.And you have to recruit others to do the same! This is the ONLY way the truth will be known.Right now, this very minute, there are people out to destroy our voice of dissent.Cannabis prohibition is only one fruit of their poison tree. I read all day and all night about how things are happening in the world, and it has gotten to me. I used to just sit back and let everyone else talk. Not anymore, I let it be known how myself and a few thousand others think. I go to different chat rooms, and talk about it. I go to message boards and news groups and post information like we do here. Sometimes I will write over and over, the names of various sites that produce what I am thinking- mostly cannabisnews.com- then I say go there and read some truth for once! Sadly, I seldom see anything other than what I have already posted, but I post it anyway, because I know that this is how the message is delivered. By staying in the face of the faceless.Go forth and multiply. Talk to the community leaders, talk to the preachers,the housewives, the truckdrivers, the waitresses,people who take your money when you pay for something at the gas station, become that cult of personality, call your radio station- FM and AM radio- there are more than enough talk shows to garner attention of the biggest wheels, write email and LETTERS, graffiti is frought with hazards- but it does work!!! Start a protest, join a protest, go to a flea market and put up a sign in protest- hand out fliers and information, sell something that promotes your cause, and then reinvest those dollars back into making more fliers,signs,t-shirts,etc. promoting your cause.Magazines that promote our belief have advertisers in them, thats where the money comes from, not from the actual sale of the paper its printed on, but from advertisers.Tesla remake of a song- "sign,sign,everywhere a sign pushing their message into my mind...some say 'just do this', cant you read the signs?" [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by Virgil on January 17, 2004 at 19:17:44 PT I hate to disagree with you EJ, but I do In this day everybody is a reporter. EJ has recorded information here concerning the her first hand experiences at events in LA and West Hollywood. Steve Tuck is news and he has commented here. Richard Cowan is a commentator and an activist involved directly in the news. Paul Peterson has recorded his personal history here. Nol Van Schaik has made postings here and at other places on the Internet that also collect eyewitness news.Everyone can now be a reporter. There are more ways for news to be collected. But more importantly is the principle of amplification. Look at all the websites for colleges. Is it a sound if nobody hears it. Is it news if nobody reads it? There is a college in Hickory called Lenoir-Rhyne. There is one in Salisbury called Catawba. Now say I went to one of these colleges and wanted to keep up with their news. I could read a newspaper that might even give reasonable coverage. But now I might be able to access the college newspaper website. How many major colleges now have online newspapers?. Paper is no longer necessary and the age of information is busting at the seams with information.I could be in traveling oversees and listen to many local radio stations over the Internet. Again, is it news if it does not reach you? Actually, it is consolidation that is reducing the voices people hear when they read or when they listen to the radio. A radio station here can operate with maintenance personnel and nothing else. Programming can come from syndicated sources and the local flavor wiped out.Look at the first hand accounts at Indymedia. Look at how many people NarcoNews will reach throughout the world with an annual budget of only $60,000.But the overall thing is the country is that we are to be lulled into mush brains and accept shout journalism as news and infotainment as news to stop the critical thinking and discussion of our real issues.We are definitely a nation in crisis and the media would have you believe we can shop and the government can borrow all our problems away. The bottom line journalism is what created putting words up from officialdom up in the first place. Just ask the government mouthpiece for something to print or ask him for the copy the taxpayers funded to make sure the party line is recited correctly. Just leave the other side off. It cost too much.UPI was a sinking ship bought by Moon. Even there we see some good pieces that they accept from independent sources and they do it because it is cheap. Because they are cheap some things get printed where people are participants in news. Then the good stories can get amplified.The cost of gathering news of the everyday variety is not that expensive. A person can call across the country for less than 4 cents a minute. A person working on a college paper could read Cnews and then go to Marijuananews and say, I think I will e-mail Richard Cowan. He could read about John Turmel and his yahoo medpot messageboard and go there and read and have direct correspondence with him by phone or e-mail.There are many more sources of eyewitness accounts on the Internet. They can be amplified to a point of visibility to go to the next level. Look at Dan Gardner's work and how it is not carried by the media powers, but blocked out. Then look how it is stored by the Internet and amplified by the Internet.Newspapers are like people that built wagons in 1900. We know we still have need of different wagons around the world and nobody can see all news on paper falling inot extinction. They face a shaky future. The print editions do not support the outlying areas they once did. My friend with the dogs cannot have the Charlotte paper delivered to him or the local paper I can still get. The need for news will produce news. This infotainment is a waste of time. If the LA Times went under the vacuum would be filled by those that already nibble at their subscribers. Newspaper subscriptions are down at the major papers. I wish boycotting would drive some completely out of business to prove that the jig is up and that they need to get real.There is no shortage of news. All lines lead to home. There are only good providers and bad. There is not going to be a vacuum in news because the bad are swept away. There will only be competition to see who survives in the day of the Internet. A print media cannot survive by relying on hate like on the radio or shouting like on television and even they just make it simple to identify the simple.It is all changing. People are waking up. While the mass media is saying Bu$h is wonderful and the jobless recovery the huge borrowing brought us has arrived, his numbers are plummeting like a rock because of the Internet. America will wake up and their will be a break-up of the concentrated control of the air waves.There are plenty that will demand it until it happens not that we have learned the cost to the welfare of the planet and our reputation on it.It is shake out time and things will be turned right once more and we do not need the Washington Post or the NYT or the LATimes to do it or the top 100 papers in the country or the top 200. They can go the way of the wainwright with customers that are hard to find. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Patrick on January 17, 2004 at 19:04:23 PT E_Johnson I think there is more sources today. You are right in the sense that the Internet has made MORE ACCESS and hence the result is that in fact more "sources" are now available at ones fingertips. While there may not be more newspapers specifically, my observation leads me to think there are certainly more sources of information today than there was even a decade ago. And they are all competing for our attention.I don't have figures to back that up but like you said, "When I grew up most cities had at least two or three newspapers. Two or three points of view on every issue." What is the difference between back when you grew up and today when you go on to tell me, "Patrick you read the same news from different sources." You just admitted all the different sources/newspapers covered the same issue? Are we not still getting "differing points of view" on the same issues today? It's not just from two or three dominant newspapers but from all the various forms of media ie. TV/radio/film/magazines/books and the Internet as well? Some sources are free and survive while others charge money and still go the way of the dinosaur. Bankruptcy is usually the fault of an individual or organization to not satisfy its customers, its utter failure to make sound financial decisions, a combination of both or some form of catastrophe. TV stations can go bankrupt just as easily as a newspaper.You know at one time we used to have a lot more steel mills. And while we have fewer steel mills today it doesn't mean that we have run out of steel. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on January 17, 2004 at 18:01:37 PT Patrick there are not MORE SOURCES Patrick you read the same news from different sources. That does not constitute having MORE sources of information. You have MORE ACCESS to sources of information that already existed.This website gives that illusion. We can acess articles from many different newspapers here at this site.If those newspapers go bankrupt, then we have fewer sources of information.It matters not one bit that we can access those newspapers from many places on the Internet.When I grew up most cities had at least two or three newspapers. Two or three points of view on every issue.People didn't value that enough to pay for it, and so corporate monopoly TV news took over. One point of view on every issue.That happened because people thought it was better to get their news for free from the TV than to pay for a newspaper. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Patrick on January 17, 2004 at 17:25:03 PT Virgil You hit the nail on the head about the media! With many sources for information one can sorta connect the dots using the Internet. Like this story above and how much time a California citizen can get for growing plants compared to say killing someone….Davidson said. "Now I'm facing 10 to 15 years in prison and I'm 53 years old. It's unbelievable." "If she did not believe this was a medical case she should have taken it to state court, and not handed over two citizens of California to the federal government for a 10-year mandatory sentence."I just searched the web and in minutes...Man gets one year, eight months to five years in prison for MANSLAUGHTER Source: http://www.theindependent.com/stories/111303/new_lopez13.shtmlThe Crown's appeal of the 10-year sentence given to Dr. Abraham Cooper for manslaughter was rejected by the Alberta Court of Appeal Wednesday. He got 7 instead! Source: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Law/2003/07/23/143577-cp.htmlA Range I sentence for criminally negligent homicide is between one and two years. Source: http://www.hwylaw.com/CM/Articles/Articles81.aspI bet I couldn't have discovered or read of this disparity if I subscribed to any one major newspaper. Where is the truth in reporting our justice system in the mainstream media. How can killing someone get you less time than growing cannabis sativa? You would think that would be a major source of outrage. But no. The sheeple seem to me to be programmed by mainstream media to accept idiocy as the norm. Thanks to the many sources of information we have today some of us can use our critical thinking skills to make independent observations that hopefully bring about an awareness to issues of importance and eventually make positive changes to the way things get done. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Virgil on January 17, 2004 at 16:34:49 PT The change of it all Things progress with time. What mede railroads of the 1860's were the blast furnaces of the 1850's. What made the printing press desirable of efficiency was the coming of cheap paper.People have always wanted to know of other places and new things and the news guaranteed a future throughout the world. Still, you take cheap paper and in 1600 and make it reasonably cheap to print the Bible or a book. You could print news but who could afford it when it was an accomplishment to keep the animals and the family alive through winter. It would not be a physical invention that solved it but a social invention. The tradespeople and the merchant class had the money and they had the need to contact customers. When they subsidized the cost of delivering the news to the common man the great social invention of advertising was on and would finance news deliver until this day.I personally have no problem in not buying any Knight-Ridder publication much alone the Charlotte Observer. I have no problem not buying the local newspaper that has survived the others. There was a new county-wide newspaper started that mailed it to me free for the longest time. One of the stories they carried was the destruction of the building that housed a newspaper that went defunct maybe 50 years ago.Things change. Only the best survive. I could care less if ever Knight-Ridder paper went under or the NYT or the LA Times. Look what they let happen to America. Why was it only this year I find out that there are only 5 major news conglomerates in the country? Why did the media itself, not cover the FCC rules that only consolidated power?It is because the media has forgotten its responsibilities as journalist. The politicians can sound-bite and demonize and call anything not from a prohibitionist and taxpayer supported script a mixed message. A newspaper has to appeal to the literate and to the intellectual need to know. It has to compete where the government does not.Politicians act like mixed messages are something bad. People are supposed to hear all sides and be able to reason. The government does not want debate on CP and mainly becasue they are on the wrong side of the issue. When their are two sides or three sides there have to be mixed messages. We call for truth and they call for lies. We call for freedom and they call for authoritarianism. We call for a free press and they call for a controlled media with bribes of hundreds of millions of dollars and tax favors and consolidation favors and education money to subsidiaries.Screw the prohibitionist. Screw there mouthpieces. The only way things can change is when people vote with their money. Where there money goes, so goes the advertising money. Things were different before the Internet. Newpapers depended on acceptance in a geographic location that centered aroung the building that sheltered the presses. It needed paper and ink and reporters and salesmen and office personnel and all kinds of miles of travel in a delivery network.People do not need the hassle of going out on a cold morning and stacking papers in a crate and hauling them off. Paper is not needed. Ink is not needed. The local sales job that is now restricted by a do-not-call list is second in best to a good product. The Internet will kill of the bad and if the Washington Post would fold, then great. I wish they would. Who needs them. Who even needs a paper. The government even acts like there is a desire to save paper when it is a record of a vote in an electonic voting device. All the receipts in the county I live in and the backup copy could be printed on the paper it takes to make a Sunday edition of the NYT. Tomorrow's Sunday edition will surely not waste much of their valuable space on talking about the need for a receipt in Americas black box voting scandal.Screw them all. Here we have Alternet. People that view this as a worthwhile source of news should be dedicated to keeping it alive and if need be forsake all others. There will always be a need for true news. There is more than ever those willing to support those that live up to their journalistic responsibilities. No longer is a source tied to one geographical area. It can share with the world and draw support from the world.The LA Times ran an article that should have been run 10 years ago. Jack Herer would have driven to their offices and sat for an extended personal interview. I would not give one nickel for their paper tomorrow. I would donate it to Alternet.The financially troubled Salon got an injection of $200,000 from the editor of Rolling Stone. His buddy that is some cazillionair from the computer age put up $600,000. People see the need to society to support worthy news organizations. I see it worthy to kill the ones that are not and I would never support the LA Times until they publicly apologize for their abdicated role in reporting on the excesses of government.If an earthquake struck LA, that would not be a good thing of course. But if it destroyed the LA Times building and they never came back who cares. Who needs them. The only thing that made them run their hemp story was changing public sentiment and a recognition that their readers are insulted and are glad to take their eyeballs and vote their money somewhere else.Things are going to change. Those that want true news will insist that it does. An informed person is not going to pay to be insulted. If it were not for the Internet, I am not sure there would be such a thing as an informed American. But now that there is, the insults are going to stop. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment