cannabisnews.com: Patient To Test Drug Law in Court





Patient To Test Drug Law in Court
Posted by FoM on March 18, 2000 at 08:03:49 PT
By Ginny McKibben, Denver Post Staff Writer 
Source: Denver Post
Multiple sclerosis victim Ror Poliac breathes in just about seven leisurely puffs of marijuana each night as he settles down on the sofa in his Arapahoe County apartment."That's all it takes," Poliac says. "It lets me eat something. It calms me down from a day's worth of medication, and it helps with my leg spasms."
For the 43-year-old, the drug brings relief from the punishing disease that over the past 10 years has left him using a wheelchair, dependent on 32 daily medications and with a colostomy.Poliac's reliance on the illegal drug has landed him in trouble with the law.But even those enforcing the law find his plight troubling. In July, authorities raided his home and caught him with several marijuana plants growing on his porch.Poliac said he showed them a doctor's note recommending he take marijuana to relieve his symptoms and the officers went away, saying they wouldn't press charges.But at 7:30 a.m. Nov. 6, they returned, saying they had an arrest warrant stemming from the July raid, and hustled him off to jail. Now, Poliac faces felony charges of cultivation of marijuana.If convicted during his August 6 trial, he could face two to six years in prison."I just think they should have more important things to do," Poliac said. "It's almost turning into a cat-and-mouse game." Poliac's case poses a dilemma both for the disabled man and the prosecutors, said Richard Bloch, chief deputy district attorney."He has a terrible case," Bloch said. "But I believe we are still at a point where cultivation of marijuana is a class 4 felony in this state. . . . It is not the job of the DA's office to legislate for the legislature." Poliac hopes to delay the case and take his chances on a November ballot initiative that would allow people in circumstances like his to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.In the meantime, Bloch said, his office can't undermine the law by letting some offenders go and prosecuting others.What they can do is offer a plea bargain, Bloch said. "The prosecutors here are fair and understanding persons," Bloch said. "I am sure they would offer a lenient plea bargain." But Poliac last week turned down a plea agreement that would have reduced the felony charge to a misdemeanor.Poliac's attorney, Warren Edson, advised against the offer, reasoning that his client was unlikely to meet its conditions."The main problem is that the plea would have included probation. Under the terms, he would have been banned from using the drug and subject to random urine tests."Given the advice of his physician, probation would have set him up for failure," Edson said.Published: March 18, 2000Copyright 2000 The Denver Post. Multiple Sclerosis Study Aided by Marijuanahttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4933.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml http://www.google.com/search?q=cannabisnews+multiple+sclerosis
END SNIP -->
Snipped
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #3 posted by FoM on March 18, 2000 at 11:20:54 PT
Check This Out!
Look what I found! I typed in kaptinemo after cannabisnews and got over 300 responses! This search is actually recording lots of good information! Anyone that has commented might want to try it too to see if you come up in the search!http://www.google.com/search?q=cannabisnews+kaptinemo
CannabisNews - kaptinemo
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #2 posted by FreedomToad on March 18, 2000 at 10:44:32 PT
I can't believe what I just read!!!
What is this country coming to? Aressting a crippled man in a wheel chair because he chooses to ease his pain in a more effective AND cheaper method is just a sign of the times man. Not to mention "Double Jeopardy!" I wish I had the money to just pack up and leave this American life behind. Not just so I wouldn't get in trouble for the occassional toke but because there is just to many signs leading to a "Neo-Civil War!" Maybe not to that extreme but something is definitely going wrong here. Gun owners are pissed, drug users are pissed, Marijuana users are pissed, minorities are pissed, all kinds of activists are pissed. And is our government, the government of the people, listening? Hell no! Even as I sit here writing this reply I can't help but be overwhelmed with disgust for the Fools that like to think they running this country properly according to what the people want. Man, I could go on forever... well, that's my two cents...
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on March 18, 2000 at 08:58:32 PT:
Spell it out for them
When I was going through Army Basic in 1982, they handed out these little comic books. (That's right, I said 'comic books'. Since nearly every recruit there was a product of the American Public School System, they had to pander to an absolute lowest common denominator. And some of those poor kids *still* had problems!) The comic books outlined what was and was not acceptable conduct during wartime. Protecting POWs, don't cut X's into bullets to make them more destructive, stuff like that. And then they got into the subject of 'unlawful orders'.An unlawful order, squeezed down to it's basics, was one that could not be obeyed on moral grounds. Like an order to round up civilians and kill them to make an example to others contemplating guerilla resistance. All this stemmed from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, because many in the international community were hot to put the US on trial for war crimes a la Nuremburg.So what does this have to do with some poor crippled guy in a wheelchair being hauled away for smoking pot? Plenty.When a law is immoral, you have no moral responsibility to obey it. It used to be against the law for Blacks to sit in the front seats on buses, or drink from fountains marked 'Whites Only'. What is happening with police actions against MMJ users is immoral. The military is not excused from responsibility in failing to act in acordance with standards of human conduct; neither should the police be held sacrosanct when their actions, despite seeming 'lawful', are in actuality immoral. And you don't need a judge, or a lawyer, or a legislator, or even a clergyman to tell you that. Just look into the eyes of the cripple your busting, officers. Is it worth it? 
[ Post Comment ]

Post Comment


Name: Optional Password: 
E-Mail: 
Subject: 
Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message]
Link URL: 
Link Title: