cannabisnews.com: County Copes With Medical Marijuana





County Copes With Medical Marijuana
Posted by FoM on January 13, 2000 at 07:48:25 PT
By John Craig - Staff Writer
Source: Spokane.net
A hunger striker who's in jail because he couldn't tell a lie is among three Stevens County residents who may help set the limits for Washington's new medical marijuana law.The initiative that voters approved in November 1998 provides only vague guidelines. The law lists a few broad medical conditions for which marijuana may be used legally, specifies that the patient may have no more than a 60-day supply and allows a "caregiver" to grow the drug if the patient can't.
But law enforcement officials in Stevens County and elsewhere aren't sure what constitutes a valid medical condition, a caregiver relationship or a 60-day supply.They suspect, though, that jailed hunger-striker Arthur Camel Shepherd Jr. had more than a 60-day supply when they raided his cabin in the isolated Kelly Hill area in the northwest corner of the county last September. Sheriff's deputies seized 27 "starter" plants and what Sheriff Craig Thayer described as 30 large, well-budded, high-quality mature plants.Shepherd and two Colville area brothers, charged in a separate marijuana-manufacturing case, face hearings next month to determine whether they are exempt from prosecution under the medical-marijuana law.Stevens County authorities said the 50-year-old Shepherd, who goes by the name Ocean Israel, claimed he needed the marijuana for a personal medical problem that he didn't specify.Earlier last year, when deputies found three mature plants and 11 starters at his cabin, Shepherd claimed he was growing the pot as a caregiver for a Colville resident. Shepherd wasn't charged in that case, but Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson ruled he didn't have a valid caregiver relationship and the recipient's medical need wasn't adequately documented.Shepherd took his clothes off and conducted a haphazard six-day hunger strike last November when Superior Court Judge Rebecca Baker sent him to jail for refusing to promise not to smoke pot if she freed him pending trial. Thayer said Shepherd sometimes refused his tray of food, but sometimes took it -- and, when he took it, it came back empty."I wouldn't say he was naked," said a jailer, who declined to be identified. "He just wasn't wearing all the jail-issue clothing that he was provided."After six days, Shepherd gave Baker the promise she wanted and was freed. Then he came back to the jail in December to extend Christmas greetings to one of the inmates, and was told he couldn't visit."So he pulled out a joint on the courthouse steps and said, `Look, I'm smoking a joint, arrest me,' and they put him in jail and he got to visit his friend," said Shepherd's Spokane attorney, Frank Cikutovich.Baker again offered to free Shepherd if he would promise not to smoke marijuana, Cikutovich said, "but he said, `I don't want to start the new millennium on a lie ...' so she put him in jail and there he sits."This time, the anonymous jailer said, Shepherd's food trays are all coming back untouched, but Shepherd is keeping all his clothes on.Cikutovich also represents Colville-area brothers Cecil Lotief, 34, and Christopher "Louis" Lotief, 28, who also face marijuana-manufacturing charges for being caught with 40 plants last year. Cikutovich believes the Lotiefs have a stronger medical-marijuana defense because one of them suffers from HIV infection."AIDS-wasting syndrome" is one of the uses specifically cited by the medical marijuana law.Other conditions listed in Initiative 692 are chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting in cancer patients, severe muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and other spasticity disorders, epilepsy, acute or chronic glaucoma, and "some forms of intractable pain."The initiative authorized the Medical Quality Assurance Commission of the state Health Department to expand the list, and the commission last year added Crohn's Disease, a gastrointestinal condition that causes chronic nausea, pain and loss of appetite. The commission also is considering adding hepatitis C.The state Senate plans a hearing Thursday on a bill that would require the Health Department to write guidelines for administering the law, but police, prosecutors and judges are on their own for the moment.There have been a couple of cases in Tacoma, but none has reached the Court of Appeals -- where statewide clarification of laws begins. Authorities don't know how many other cases may be pending in trial courts around the state.In one of the Tacoma cases, the Pierce County prosecutor decided not to charge a blind AIDS patient and his mother, who had three marijuana plants in their home. In the other, a man was charged with manufacturing marijuana when he was caught with 157 plants he said he was growing for 11 patients covered by the medical marijuana law.Meanwhile, overlapping federal law is unrelenting. Last October, a federal judge sentenced Cheney resident Sam Diana to six months of home detention for maintaining a house for drug manufacturing, use and storage. Diana said he uses marijuana to alleviate his multiple sclerosis symptoms, but authorities said he had 175 plants, 15 pounds of processed weed, scales, packaging material and $50,000 in cash.Jeff Kildow, acting chief of the Seattle office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said 30 plants like the ones Shepherd allegedly cultivated would "very conservatively" produce 30 pounds of finished product. That's enough for 13,620 typical marijuana cigarettes, which couldn't be used up in two months without puffing on a joint in almost every waking moment.Cikutovich said his firm, which handles many drug cases, is proposing some guidelines for Stevens County.Prosecutor Jerry Wetle welcomed the assistance: "I think the court would be interested in those guidelines because, absent any Department of Health proclamations, we do need to be able to deal with those issues."Published: January 12, 2000Spokesman Review/Spokane.netRelated Articles & Web Site:Washington Citizens For Medical Rights http://www.eventure.com/i692/ Crohn's On List For Medical Marijuana - 11/09/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3617.shtmlMed. Marijuana Law Expanded to Add Crohn's Disease-11/08/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3602.shtml Guide Issued on Medical Marijuana - 6/24/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread1769.shtml
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