Uphold The Law

November 05, 1999
By Steve Kubby
Source: Orange County Register
www.ocregister.com/
www.cannabisnews.com/news...3569.shtml

Mr. Kubby, who lives in Laguna Beach, played a key role in the Proposition
215 campaign in 1996 and was the Libertarian Party candidate for
California governor last year.

He and his wife, Michele, both of whom use medical marijuana with a
doctor's recommednation, were arrested for marijuana cultivation and sale
several months ago when they lived in Placer County. Their trial was
postponed to early next year.

As Governor George W. Bush recently observed, medical marijuana should be
left up to the states to decide, not the federal government. Unfortunately
serious opposition to medical marijuana still exists within the law
enforcement community, which believes that the Compassionate Use Act of
1996 is some sort of hoax, or worse, not a law to be obeyed.

Did you happen to see Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo's comment earlier
this week in the Register? The Assistant Sheriff is quoted as saying that
Prop. 215 can't be enforced here in Orange County because it 'contradicts
federal law.'

If Prop. 215 conflicts with Federal law, why hasn't it been challenged in
court? According to the California Constitution, unless a new law has been
challenged in court, all California officials are obligated to obey it,
even the Assistant Sheriff.

Also, if Prop. 215 violates Federal law, then why does the Federal
government send each of its eight medical marijuana patients 7.1 pounds of
marijuana per year?

It's true, the same Federal government that says medical marijuana is
against Federal law, mails over seven pounds of medical marijuana, rolled
up as cigarettes to each of their eight Federal medical marijuana
patients. The FDA even provides a note that these patients can show law
enforcement. How come that's not a conflict and Prop. 215 is?

The shameful truth is that three years after voters approved Prop. 215,
sick, disabled and dying people are being arrested, jailed, exposed to
opportunistic infections, indicted, plea bargained, humiliated, bankrupted
and worse, simply to uphold a drug policy that isn't working.

If only our elected officials would uphold their oath of office and uphold
the will of the voters who wisely chose three years ago this day to
protect sick people and exempt them from the War on Drugs. Every elected
official and all law enforcement officers are sworn to 'Defend and uphold
the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.' That same
Constitution clearly states in the 9th and 10th amendments that all rights
and powers not enumerated in the Constitution to the Federal government,
remain vested with the people and the states.

There is also the matter of the 9th Circuit Court decision on September
13, 1999. In that decision, the appeals court ruled that seriously ill
patients who have medical necessity should be allowed to use medical
marijuana. That decision has just been appealed, but because it was a Per
Curiam Opinion, which is a legal term for a strongly supported decision
that has unanimous consent, it seems doubtful it will be overturned.

If respect for the law is to mean anything in our society, our elected
officials must set aside their Zero Tolerance ideology and uphold the law.
Elected officials could begin tomorrow to implement the Compassionate Use
Act of 1996 by taking the following four specific actions:

1. STOP ARRESTING SICK PEOPLE. Don't authorize budgets or federal grants
that will be used against sick people. Adopt and implement the Oakland
Guidelines to protect sick people from arrest. These are the only medical
marijuana guidelines that were created by police, patients and physicians
working together to establish limits based upon real world needs. If
police and patients are happy with these guidelines in Oakland, it should
certainly work here in Orange County as well.

2) STOP TREATING SICK PEOPLE LIKE CRIMINALS. Fund a non-invasive voluntary
patient/caregivers identification cards, managed by county or state health
departments, which protects the privacy of patients and cannot be accessed
by law enforcement agencies.

3) STOP FORCING SICK PEOPLE INTO THE BLACK MARKET. Demand that the federal
government take action on the petition filed by Jon Gettman with the Drug
Enforcement Administration on July 27, 1995, and reschedule marijuana from
a Schedule I to a Schedule III. That action alone would solve many of the
problems and concerns voiced by law enforcement and allow patients to go
directly to their pharmacist to obtain their medicine.

4) STOP PROSECUTING SICK PEOPLE AND THEIR CAREGIVERS. Elected officials
must provide legal protection for sick and dying patients from illegal
arrests and prosecutions. To uphold the law, officials must see to it that
Grand Juries investigate any and all complaints by medical marijuana
patients or caregivers regarding violations of the Compassionate Use Act.

Make no mistake, this issue is no more about marijuana than the Boston Tea
Party was about tea. This is about sick and dying people who are living in
fear that the very people we pay to protect us have turned against them
all because they use a medicine that the Federal governments own IOM study
showed is NOT addictive and NOT a gateway drug.

Three years is long enough. It's time to stop hiding behind federal laws
and the failed ideology of Zero Tolerance. The voters have spoken and they
have clearly voted to stop treating medical marijuana patients like
criminals.

Medical marijuana is the law; now is the time for law enforcement and our
elected official to show good faith and uphold the law.

November 5, 1999
Copyright 1999 The Orange County Register

Related Articles & Web Sites:

The Kubby Files
www.kubby.com/

215 NOW!
www.215now.com/

Medicinal-Marijuana Activists Ask for 'Safe Place'- 11/03/99
www.cannabisnews.com/news...3537.shtml

Medicinal Marijuana Trial Delayed - 8/13/99
www.cannabisnews.com/news...2481.shtml