cannabisnews.com: Petition Filed On Medical Pot Use





Petition Filed On Medical Pot Use
Posted by FoM on November 30, 1999 at 13:12:09 PT
By Wayne Wilson, Bee Staff Writer 
Source: Sacramento Bee
Medical marijuana advocates filed a petition Monday with the Placer County Board of Supervisors demanding that local lawmakers take an active role in implementing Proposition 215 -- the initiative permitting seriously ill patients, with a doctor's permission, to grow and use marijuana.
Sick people and their caregivers "continue to be arrested in alarming numbers," despite the initiative's passage in 1996, the petition said.Stop the arrests, stop treating patients like criminals, stop forcing them into the black market and stop the prosecution of sick and dying people who, once charged, are forced to make bail, hire legal counsel and appear repeatedly in court, it demanded.Placer County officials acknowledged receipt of the petition, but spokeswoman Anita Yoder said it would not, in itself, "trigger any requirement for action."Sheriff Edward N. Bonner, whose department has been criticized for what activists consider to be an aggressive campaign against medicinal pot users, said Monday that he recognizes the concerns raised in the petition."There has to be some agreement on how to enforce Proposition 215," he said.Bonner called the act "poorly crafted" and without statewide guidelines. "The main problem we can't get around is that under federal law, marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug," Bonner said.Bonner said he welcomes the petition as an opportunity for dialogue on the controversy."Ideally, we could come together as a community of people and say this is what is acceptable and this is what is not," Bonner said.The sheriff takes exception to the allegation that seriously ill patients are being deprived of their rights.He said that only six of the five dozen marijuana busts made by his department in the last year or so have involved suspects with medical clearances.And in three of those cases, Bonner said, the marijuana and equipment seized were returned and no prosecutions ensued when they were shown to be patients with no indication of sales.The only active cases involve possession for sale, Bonner said, which is not exempt under the initiative.Two of the defendants currently charged with possession for sale, former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby and Roseville dentist Michael Baldwin, participated in the preparation of the petition, which is signed by more than 60 individuals.Kubby, who was arrested Jan. 19 when sheriff's deputies found 265 marijuana plants at his Squaw Valley home, faces trial Feb. 15.Baldwin is due to return to court March 9 for retrial of a possession for sale complaint, which ended last May with the jury deadlocked 6-6. A search of his home yielded 146 plants.Both had pot-use recommendations from physicians at the times of their arrests, but police claim the size of the crops and other indicators suggested that the pot was intended for more than just personal medicinal use.According to Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), the petition filed with Placer County is the first of several designed to combat what the activists consider to be "police abuses."Placer, El Dorado and some of the other Sierra jurisdictions are considered by medical marijuana advocates to be "cowboy counties" where authorities are trampling on the rights of seriously ill patients, Gieringer said.Kubby, who since his arrest has moved with his pregnant wife to Orange County to "start a new life under more compassionate government," suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer.He says he smokes pot to stay alive.And it is his contention that it is the police who are breaking the law when they arrest medicinal marijuana users.In their petition, the medicinal marijuana advocates urged Placer County to adopt guidelines established in Oakland, which permit the use of 7.1 pounds of pot per year per patient.Under the Oakland standard, a patient may be growing as many as 144 plants, 48 of them flowering, at a time.Sheriff Bonner on Monday said the Oakland guidelines are too high. But Kubby said they are reasonable and are based on the government's own studies.Both men agree that a consensus on the limits will emerge.But until that point is reached, Placer County is taking it one case at a time. Published: November 30, 1999 Copyright © The Sacramento Bee Related Articles & Web Sites:California NORML's Web Sitehttp://home.igc.org/~canorml/American Medical Marijuana Association:http://www.kubby.com/AMMA.htmlA Step Forward On Medical Marijuana - 11/17/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3708.shtmlLaying Down On The Law - 11/08/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3605.shtmlNews From American Medical Marijuana Association - 11/08/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3601.shtmlWelcome to the AMMA Home Page - 11/07/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3588.shtml 
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