Press Releases

DETROIT – Talk show host Montel Williams was cited and fined $100 Monday night in the Detroit Metro Airport after baggage screeners found paraphernalia and a small amount of marijuana related to his Multiple Sclerosis. Mr. Williams suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and has a doctor’s recommendation to use medical marijuana to control his chronic pain. Airport officials decided to cite him only for the paraphernalia possession, saying 'We don't want to damage his reputation. Montel Williams may or may not have broken any law.'

 

A spokesperson for Mr.

SAN FRANCISCO – A coalition of medical marijuana patients, doctors and supporters have today launched a statewide ad campaign aimed at California’s two senators. Americans for Safe Access is asking Senators Boxer and Feinstein to add their names to new federal legislation that would allow a medical defense in some federal marijuana trials.

 

The fullpage ads appear beginning today in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly,  LA Weekly, Sacramento News and Review, the San Diego Reader and the Santa Barbara Independent.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by the Bush Administration to punish physicians who talk with their patients about medical use of marijuana. The Supreme Court has upheld lower court rulings that the First Amendment rights of doctors would be violated by the Administration’s plan to strip doctors of their licenses if they recommend marijuana to patients who might be helped by it.

SANTA MONICA – Tomorrow morning at 10:00am, medical marijuana patients and their supporters will be at California Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Santa Monica office. After a press conference out front, they will ask him to use his meeting with President Bush later this week to help put an end to the federal attacks on patients and doctors.

SACRAMENTO – After seven years of legal limbo, the California legislature has acted to clarify and expand the rights of its citizens to obtain, possess and use marijuana for medical purposes, and Governor Gray Davis has now signed it into law.

 

SB 420 establishes a voluntary patient ID system with a 24/7 call-in number for law enforcement to ensure that patients need not fear arrest or intimidation.

LOS ANGELES – Arrested for growing marijuana for a West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensary that was a model of openness and cooperation with law enforcement, Judy Osburn, 50, one of the directors of the center, and her husband, Lynn, a 54-year-old Vietnam veteran, have reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that could leave them free on bail pending appeal or even result in no jail time.

The one issue all the major gubernatorial candidates in the California recall agree on is that marijuana should be legally available to those who are medically helped by it. When asked about medical marijuana in a televised debate, Arianna Huffington and Tom McClintock took it one step further by saying that they would actively “fight federal restrictions.”

 

Since then, Lt.

SACRAMENTO – A candlelight vigil tonight on the north steps of the California state capitol building in Sacramento commemorates the anniversary of the incarceration of Bryan Epis, who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for helping patients in Chico get marijuana to treat their suffering.

 

Part of a national day of remembrance for Mr. Epis and other patients and providers lost to the struggle for access to medical marijuana, today’s vigil is the prelude to an afternoon rally tomorrow, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.

Los Angeles – Americans for Safe Access has launched a campaign to educate Los Angelenos about U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s attacks on their medical rights. “Coming to a Courtroom Near You” reads the headline over an image of a gagged doctor with a heavily armed DEA agent standing at the ready in the background.