cannabisnews.com: Judge Says No Pot Smoking to AIDS Patient! 





Judge Says No Pot Smoking to AIDS Patient! 
Posted by FoM on March 10, 1999 at 08:44:39 PT
More on Peter McWilliams!
LOS ANGELES A federal judge has denied an AIDS patient's request to smoke marijuana for medical purposes while he awaits trial for growing the drug.
``By this order, we do not mean to express indifference to the defendant's situation,'' U.S. District Judge George H. King wrote. ``We hope and trust that defendant and his physician will be able to determine a suitable treatment program within the law.'' Peter McWilliams said he has the right to grow and smoke marijuana under a 1996 California law. Medical marijuana advocates have maintained they did nothing illegal under Proposition 215, the state initiative that legalized the cultivation, use and possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes on a doctor's recommendation. Federal courts have not recognized the state law. McWilliams, a self-help publisher who allegedly financed an operation that grew more than 6,000 marijuana plants, pleaded innocent last year to conspiracy to grow marijuana, possessing the drug with the intent to distribute, and distributing it. He was arrested with another man July 23, 1998, under a federal indictment alleging he and others grew thousands of marijuana plants. The men grew the plants to supply clubs that sell marijuana to sick people. McWilliams says he needs to smoke marijuana to ease nausea from the numerous AIDS-fighting drugs he must take to survive. McWilliams' attorney, Tom Ballanco, said he will appeal the ruling, which was made Thursday but not released until Tuesday. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/cnews/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/03/09/state2315EST0143.DTL 
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