cannabisnews.com: COLUMN: Medicinal Marijuana: a Punishable Offense?





COLUMN: Medicinal Marijuana: a Punishable Offense?
Posted by FoM on May 16, 2000 at 21:27:42 PT
By Robert Tinghitella, The Daily U. Washington
Source: U-WIRE
If you think no one can be arrested for possessing or taking medicinal marijuana in California because it is legal, you would be wrong. According to federal law, marijuana is illegal; consequently, you can still go to federal prison. Peter McWilliams - a publisher and writer of 35 nonfiction books and columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate for 17 years - was diagnosed with AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer, in March 1996. 
McWilliams - who is wheelchair-bound - had tried various drugs prescribed by his doctor to control the nausea but none worked. The only way for him to control his nausea was with medical marijuana recommended by his doctor. In the fall of 1996, McWilliams met Todd McCormick - a medicinal marijuana patient who has had bone cancer since he was 9 years old and is an expert at growing marijuana and of the ways different strains of marijuana (there are more than 30,000) are useful in treating different illnesses. McWilliams commissioned McCormick to rent a house to grow different marijuana strains and to write a book. On July 29, 1997, 50 federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Los Angeles Sheriff's Narcotics Deputies stormed Todd McCormick's rented house. What they found were 4,000 marijuana plants in different stages of development. McCormick and McWilliams were consequently arrested in the raid and were put in custody. McWilliams was denied his AIDS medications for nine days while in federal custody. When he finally got them, they did no good because he could not keep them down with the nausea he was getting. After four weeks, his family was able to put up the $250,000 bail to have him released. The condition of his bail was that he could not use any THC product including Marinol, which is a legal prescription drug with the active ingredient THC. McWilliams had to submit to drug tests to prove that he wasn't using any THC products; if he failed any of the drug tests his family's houses would be forfeited to the federal government and he would be locked up. On Nov. 5, 1999, the trial judge ruled that McCormick and McWilliams could not say anything about the diseases they suffer from, Proposition 215 (which legalized marijuana for medical use in California) or marijuana's medical usefulness. They also were prohibited from saying anything about the eight patients to whom the federal government gives medical marijuana. The announcement ran counter to the judgment by the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals, which ruled a month earlier that "medical necessity" can be a viable defense for people accused of breaking federal marijuana laws. Unable to defend their actions, McWilliams and McCormick - facing mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years each - pled guilty to a lesser charge of conspiring to grow and distribute marijuana, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. The purpose of the government is to serve the people. But in the case of medical marijuana, the federal government went against the will of the people - which overwhelmingly approved the right to use medical marijuana in 1996 in California. What purpose is served to society by having an AIDS patient in a wheelchair and a bone cancer patient locked up at a cost of over $20,000 plus medical expenses? How does being censored from explaining their actions equal a fair trial? The only purpose is to show them and every other medical marijuana patient that they have no rights when it comes to treating themselves with medical marijuana. By Robert TinghitellaThe Daily U. Washington(U-WIRE) SeattleWeb Posted: May 16, 2000 (C) 2000 The Daily via U-WIRE  Copyright © 2000 At Home Corporation. Related Articles & Web Sites:The Medical Marijuana Magazinehttp://marijuanamagazine.com/Grow Medicinehttp://growmedicine.com/Families Against Mandatory Minimumshttp://famm.org/AIDS Victim Hammered By Pot Chargehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread3742.shtmlActivists Plead Guilty to Drug Charges http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread3734.shtmlPeter and Todd - A Note From Momhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread3590.shtml
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