If police officers seize marijuana legally kept by a medical marijuana patient, should they have to give the property back?
This is what The Register wrote about today, and this is what I’m wondering today. After all, California voters chose to allow for the medicinal use of marijuana under Prop 215. However, many local law enforcement agents in California still arrest medical marijuana users and confiscate their medicine. So do YOU think law enforcement should return the marijuana to the patients once they have determined that these patients are legitimately protected under Prop 215?
Check out what happened to these two patients, and think about how they were treated:
Felix Kha of Garden Grove had 8 grams seized from him in June 2005 during a traffic stop. Criminal charges were later dismissed after Kha proved he had a prescription for the drug – which he uses for back pain.
Kha then asked a judge to make Garden Grove police give him back the marijuana. Orange County Judge Linda Marks agreed, and ordered the department to return it. […]
Besides the Kha case, justices heard about what happened to Jim Spray of Huntington Beach. Police confiscated 5 ounces of marijuana from Spray, as well as his growing equipment in November 2005. He had a prescription for the drug, also for back pain. But Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel T. Brice, ruled he shouldn’t get his marijuana back.
“The people have spoken in their voting record for support of medical marijuana,” said Spray, who also attended the hearing. “This vacillation from city to city and various judges shouldn’t be happening.”
So a local judge decided that Garden Grove Police needed to return the medical marijuana to Feliz Kha, but they haven’t. Meanwhile Jim Spray asked that his medical marijuana be returned to him, but another judge denied him of his request. Is this a fair application of the law? Or should the 4th District State Court of Appeal overturn Judge Brice’s ruling, and decide that all police departments must return the medical marijuana to patients should these patients show evidence that they had legal prescriptions?
I want to know what YOU have to say on this matter. So go ahead. Make my day. have your say.
Yes, definetly the court should reimburse financially the wrongly arrested persons for their medical marijuana and false arrest (Don’t we already have a law against false arrest?) (Why hasn’t anyone used this law yet?) Since there is to big of a risk that the evidence will go up in smoke (Yes even policeman smoke marijuana) or lose it’s potency. The victim should also be paid for false arrest and the waste of their time and freedom. The Federal Government will probably not legalize Medical Marijuana soon but we the people must demand that the Federal Government respect state laws and the citizens that obey the law, not to mention the “Will of the People.” No one should ever be arressted for obeying their doctors orders or for smoking marijuana at all. The Canadian Government just released the results of a study (That we all new to be true anyway) that Alcohol , Cocaine, and Meth are drugs that lead to violence whereas Marijuana does not. DUH!!! Anyone who has ever smoked marijuana, and that includes most of our politicians, knows the many good qualities THC provides for the human body and that the most dangerous thing about useing marijuana, besides prohibition which never works, is the munchies, of course like so many others I did not know of the medical theraputic effects of cannabis until I smoked marijuana for 27 years then quit for 10 years with no problems whatsoever because I was bored with it, then I contracted diabetes which lead to gastric paresis which leaves me in a 24/7 state of nausea and 3-5 times a month of projectile vomiting. Two or three puffs on excellant quality marijuana and my nausea is totally gone for up to 6 hours thus avoiding a 12-24 hour vomiting sessions followed by the worst painful stomach cramps I have ever had; see http://www.leap.com it is a site for Law Enfircement Against Prohibition. There you can read from experienced law men why prohibition will/does not work. Just look at Alcohol Prohibition. Even though alcohol is way more dangerous to the human conditionof the drinker and those around him, either in a private home, public place, or on the highway. Because Alcohol releases pent up violent emotins in mentally unbalanced people besides seriously affecting your reflexes, and the funny thing about it is you don’t have to be that mentally unbalanced for Alcohol to turn you violent. Prohibition was repealed because it was the will of the people, plus our lawmakers like the effects alcohol has on the human body including releasing pent up violent emotions, and that it makes us pass out before we can drink enough to kill ourselves. This is NOT necessary with marijuana, since marijuana has been used by people from 6000 B.C. to present no one has ever died from marijuana for it is impossible to O.D. on marijuana/ THC. Cannabis does not lead to unruly behavior either, it mellows out a person and gets rid of my constant nausea in order to avoid 3-4 violent vomiting sessions. Plus we have 2000 years of documented proof of the theraputic effects of marijuana with the widest safety margin of almost all drugs. Heck, marijuana is safer than aspirin, aspirin can be fatal but not marijuana. I read wher a person would have to intake 1500 ponds of marijuana within 15 minutes in order to possible die of a THC overdose, now that’s a wide safeth margin. The only reason it was made illegal in 1937 was because of lies and propaganda put out by the US Government through the newly created DEA and its leader Harry Anslinger, who with the Hearst corp. spread false truths about the effects of marijuana. Now 70 years later with much medical evidence pointing out the theraputic effects of marijuana don’t you think it is about time we grew up and approached this issue on a realistic adult way.
Jeff-
Thanks for the history AND science lesson on marijuana. Now, I guess it’s time for me to have my say. I TOTALLY agree with you here. The most dangerous things that can happen when someone smokes pot are a little buzz and a BIG appetite. Personally, I think marijuana should just be legalized, regulated, and taxed just like tobacco and alcohol. And for medical patients who use marijuana as medicine, we should relax the regulations and the taxes.
It’s ridiculous to throw someone in jail for smoking a joint when so many crazy drunk people run around freely. Oh yes, and it’s especially ridiculous to criminalize those who are simply using marijuana as life-sustaining medicine. I hope more people realize this soon.
Marijuana SHOULD be made legal an regulated and taxed just as tobacco and alcohol are. Medical marijuana users should not be punished and have their MEDICINE pain releif taken away. legalizing marijuana would take the appeal away for all th kids who do it just to be a badass and whatnot… The effects of alcohol are worse and yet it’s legal and marijuana isn’t. Why is that?