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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In a hearing with momentous implications for federal drug laws, four medical marijuana dispensaries challenging the constitutionality of federal laws prohibiting their operation will have their chance in front of a federal appeals court on Wednesday morning.
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Thursday, August 28, 2003 – The leading candidates for governor in California’s hotly contested recall race were given surveys and briefing books on medical marijuana today. Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s leading organization of patients, doctors and advocates, is seeking to find out how many other candidates will join Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arianna Huffington in publicly defending California’s Compassionate Use Act.
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Santa Ana – A “bold, precedent-setting decision” is what U.S. District Judge David O. Carter had said he would make yesterday in the sentencing of an Orange County man who had been growing in his garage the marijuana he used to treat his chronic back pain. Instead, the judge continued the sentencing hearing for the third time, giving federal prosecutors a fourth chance to produce any evidence that Michael Teague was selling the herb to others at the time of his arrest in April, 2002.
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Santa Ana – A “bold, precedent-setting decision” is what U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has said he will make today in the sentencing of an Orange County man who had been growing in his garage the marijuana he used to treat his chronic back pain. Federal prosecutors want five years in prison for Michael Teague, 33, but Judge Carter has challenged them to produce evidence that Teague ever sold any of it. Otherwise, he says he’s ready to set precedent for Southern California.
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San Francisco – Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have signed a letter requesting leniency for three medical marijuana patients appearing in federal court tomorrow for an unprecedented third day of sentencing hearings. The Supervisors ask Judge William Alsup to take into consideration the city’s “resolution declaring San Francisco a sanctuary for medical cannabis use, cultivation, and distribution,” which urges “the San Francisco Police Department not to assist in the arrest of any patients, physicians, dispensaries, and caregivers.
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