cannabisnews.com: Vasco Tries Stealth Pot Bill!





Vasco Tries Stealth Pot Bill!
Posted by FoM on July 01, 1999 at 12:58:59 PT
For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 1, 1999
Source: Marijuana.org
Won’t release Lockyer Medical Marijuana Task Force results in time for opposition, criticism, or patient input. – SB 848 becomes a civil rights trade-off: protecting pot dealers and police but not patients.
The report from the Lockyer Medical Marijuana Task Force is the tightest kept secret in Sacramento these days but a copy was leaked to Prop. 215’s author Dennis Peron. The plan is to "avoid criticism" by keeping the report under wraps until a Hearing in the Assembly Health Committee this July 13th. It will then be added to SB 848, a "slot bill" sponsored by Senator Vasconcellos which already passed the State Senate (two committee hearings and approval on the Senate floor) as essentially a blank document, nothing but rhetoric. In utmost secrecy the details of the measure have been negotiated by a group of pot dealers, police, and District Attorneys who opposed Proposition 215. Patients who don’t sell pot were excluded from their task force. This stealth technique is necessary because SB 848 seeks to kill Proposition 215 by registering medical marijuana patients much like sex offenders, making them and their doctors satisfy a plethora of public health and police bureaucracies.The Core of the measure is a massive voluntary patient registry system (patient funded). SB 848 will not protect patients or their caregivers that don’t participate in this voluntary patient identification system. The bill promises pot dealers who support the registry immunity from the state nuisance laws (for running Pot Clubs in residential neighborhoods) but doesn’t erase the law against a patient possessing a cannabis pipe.Enacting a 16-page set of medical marijuana laws "parallel" to Proposition 215 will cause confusion. Medical marijuana patients will have to choose between voluntarily surrendering their civil rights to claim marginal protections under SB 848 or fighting in court for their full rights under Proposition 215. SB 848 would interfere with the California Court’s ability to interpret and uphold "The Compassionate Use Act of 1996," which virtually established the honors system in California. Courts are routinely ordering medical marijuana returned to patients and are just starting to hear (in Simi Valley and Sacramento) the first punitive damages lawsuits. The long awaited outcome of just one of these multi-million dollar damage claims is expected to end these final attempts by police and politicians to circumvent Proposition 215 through claims of ignorance and inability."SB 848 is the loser’s version of Proposition 215 and we must defeat it," summarized Prop. 215’s author Dennis Peron upon reading the proposal.Californians for Compassionate Use 3745 17th St. San Francisco, CA 94114Lake County Cannabis Farm, Lower Lake, CA Phone: (707) 994-1901 Fax: (707) 994-2165E-mail: cbc marijuana.org www.marijuana.org FPPC ID: 960825 
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