Medical Marijuana: California Supreme Court Tightens Definition of "Caregiver," Ruling Will Push Patients Toward Co-ops and Dispensaries
In a narrow interpretation of the state's Compassionate Use Act, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that people who supply medical marijuana to an approved patient can be prosecuted as drug traffickers if they don't meet the court's standards for caregivers. That standard must involve more than merely supplying medical marijuana to a qualifying patient, the court held.
[inline:medmj-bag.jpg align=right caption="California medical marijuana bags (courtesy Daniel Argo via Wikimedia)"]Prior to Monday's ruling, marijuana growers who had been designated as caregivers by multiple patients had been able to win protection from prosecution under the Compassionate Use Act. Now, patients who relied on such growers to provide their medicine will have to turn to dispensaries that are organized as co-ops or collectives in accordance with California law.
The ruling came in the case of California v. Mentch. Roger Mentch was arrested in 2003 after a bank teller smelled marijuana on repeated cash deposits he made and police subsequently searched his home, where they found nearly 200 pot plants growing. Mentch told investigators he was the "primary caregiver" for five qualified patients, but at trial, the judge refused to let the jury consider whether he was a caregiver, and Mentch was convicted and sentenced to probation. An appeals court in San Jose overturned his conviction, saying jurors should have been allowed to decide whether he was indeed the patients' caregiver, but now the state's high court has disagreed.
"We hold that a defendant whose caregiving consisted principally of supplying marijuana and instructing on its use, and who otherwise only sporadically took some patients to medical appointments, cannot qualify as a primary caregiver under the Act and was not entitled to an instruction on the primary caregiver affirmative defense," wrote Justice Werdegar for the court. "We further conclude that nothing in the Legislature's subsequent 2003 Medical Marijuana Program (Health & Saf. Code, §11362.7 et seq.) alters this conclusion or offers any additional defense on this record."
The language of Proposition 215 defines a primary caregiver as "the individual designated by the [patient]... who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person." With this ruling, the state Supreme Court has defined that definition to "imply a caretaking relationship directed at the core survival needs of a seriously ill patient, not just one single pharmaceutical need."
Thus, for someone to be able to assert a caregiver defense to a marijuana cultivation or distribution charge, he "must prove at a minimum that he or she (1) consistently provided caregiving, (2) independent of any assistance in taking medical marijuana, (3) at or before the time he or she assumed responsibility for assisting with medical marijuana."
"Ideally, it won't have a tremendous effect," Joseph Elford, attorney for the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Patients will now increasingly get their medication through collectives and cooperatives."
The 2003 law establishing the dispensary system "provides an alternative outlet for patients," agreed Deputy Attorney General Michele Swanson, the state's lawyer.
But Mentch attorney Lawrence Gibbs told the Chronicle the court's decision "made it much, much more difficult" for qualified patients to get their medical marijuana. While the ruling may not have a significant impact on access to medical marijuana in areas where dispensaries are plentiful, large swathes of the state have no dispensaries. In those areas, patients will have to grow for themselves, have a spouse, domestic partner, or family member who can meet the court's definition grow it for them, travel long distances to areas where there are dispensaries, or resort to the black market.
Comments
SubversiveCourts
If our Courts continue to deliberately subvert and deliberately refuse to implement the Will of the People, what can we do?
I wonder what the Founders of this Great Country would have to say about OUR Government's continued persecution of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers?
Lawgivers and our Government are the Terrorists
We have been terrorized by our own Government for a very long time. If Obama cannot get this country in shape, then a Revolution is close behind the likes of which we have never seen before. Maybe something like Bastille Day in France comes to mind? I am so tired of being in pain and some idiot thinking he knows what is best for me. Walk a mile in a mans shoes before he condemns another. Meaning if they lived with the pain we do, they would be the first in line, and would be legal. Humm, maybe they should feel the pain we do from day to day?
Ticked off US Citizen
DeathTwister
In reply to Lawgivers and our Government are the Terrorists by Anonymous (not verified)
caregiver reform ?
If not Bastille Day ,then a TaxRevolt ie.,[NoTaxation,NoRepresentation] after all ,enough is enough > WeThePeople hav the Rights to "benignly selfmedicate" ,regardless of 'state/fed' intervention ... that is all
In reply to Lawgivers and our Government are the Terrorists by Anonymous (not verified)
the People outnumber "them" by the thousands
I like where your head's at DeathTwister! There's nothing more patriotic than standing up and clearly warning a government (and its "tools") that it is pursuing interests that are against those of the People which it is supposed to be OF, BY and FOR.
~fair warning~
DowntheDrain
Our beloved Country:
1. Tortures Perceived Enemies
2. Deprives People of Due Process
3. Imprisons People for undetermined length of time
4. Disseminates Blatant Propaganda and obfuscate VITAL MEDICAL INFORMATION (We pay for the DEA and the ONDCP to LIE!!)
5. Continues to try to take over Medicine and continues to prevent patients from being able to follow their doctors' recommendations.
6. Continues to squash and trample the Will of the Majority, for the Will of Industry and to appear "tough on crime."
7. Deprives Medical Marijuana Patients of medicine and medical treatment.
8. Has more people behind bars than China (excluding re-education camps)!!
9. IS CURRENTLY VIOLATING THE 10TH AMENDMENT OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, WHICH IS CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT ISSUES NOT SPELLED OUT IN THE REST OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION -- FOR INSTANCE HEALTH ISSUES, LIKE MEDICAL MARIJUANA -- ARE AREAS OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY .
10. IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR FREE
10. IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR FREE
That is a given, we are NOT supposed to be a democratic nation. We are a REPUBLIC! Our Founding Fathers hated "democracy" and had much to say on the subject -- "Democracy is two wolves and lamb voting on what's for dinner." "Democracy is where 51% of the people can vote away the rights of the other 49%." Etc., etc., etc.! It is just too bad our government controlled schools do not teach us the real history of our founding and the real meaning of the documents which are supposed to protect us from overbearing government.
In reply to 10. IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR FREE by Anonymous (not verified)
Two other things
Two other things our Founding Fathers hated were central banks (the fed) and mercantilism, neither of those atrocities was ever supposed to be allowed to rear its ugly, criminal head in this nation, but now the nation is controlled by both of those two atrocities. Those two atrocities are the foundation of and reason for Prohibition 2.0! Do a bit of research on the central banks, mercantilism and the history of the WoD (individually and together), and you will see the truth of that claim.
In reply to 10. IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR FREE by Anonymous (not verified)
Government schools
"It is just too bad our government controlled schools do not teach us the real history of our founding and the real meaning of the documents which are supposed to protect us from overbearing government."
All the more reason to separate school and state:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, BE CLEAR
Yo pretentious, presumptuous prick, if you are going to pontificate with a history lesson, you should know what the Hell you're talking about.
The U.S. is a DEMOCRATIC Republic:
1. All of our political chief executives are chosen by the popular vote, as are all of our legislators and many of our judges.
2. We also have direct ballot initiative processes in about half of the states.
We are not a democracy in the Athenian sense, of course, but there's no particular reason to cede to the ancient Greeks the definition of "democracy". Our system was democratic even before it was a republic.
And there is much overlap between democracy and a republic.
Take a look at American colonial governance. It was representative in some parts, town meeting style in New England, and quite democratic.
And our republic doesn't look much like the Roman Republic, where class limitations applied to what offices one could hold.
We aren't a classical democracy, and we're not a classical republic. We're a democratic republic, or a republican democracy, and always have been. really. There aren't any historical precedents for what we've done here: we broke the mold.
But with the Bush-Clinton Dynasty, our representative or democratic Republic is moving toward an oligarchy.
Electoral College
To clarify, before the pretentious, presumptuous pricks pounce again, I do understand that the U.S. Prez is not chosen by popular vote. Here are a few examples where candidates lost the election, despite winning the popular vote:
* John Quincy Adams who lost by 44,804 votes to Andrew Jackson in 1824
* Rutherford B. Hayes who lost by 264,292 votes to Samuel J. Tilden in 1876
* Benjamin Harrison who lost by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland in 1888
* George W. Bush who lost by 543,816 votes to Al Gore in the 2000 election.
It's time to go
My despensiry was raided, the employees jailed. I call the owner my caretaker, the court says my opinion is wrong.
At 40 years old I'm at the point where I have watched folks like us get our ass-kicked by the elite for 20 years. Every time we gain a popular inch, they create a mile of legislation & regulation.
I have listened to the exact same talk ad nauseum, the comments on this page mirror those people were all fired up about in the 1980s... nothing changes except for the worst.
Love it or leave it?.. I have love for my brother / sister citizens who experience the same struggle as I, but there is nothing to love about what the GOP / DNC DC Mafia Govt has become. Their incompetence, stupidity, greed and criminal hypocrisy will be legendary.
"1. Tortures Perceived Enemies
2. Deprives People of Due Process
3. Imprisons People for undetermined length of time
4. Disseminates Blatant Propaganda and obfuscate VITAL MEDICAL INFORMATION (We pay for the DEA and the ONDCP to LIE!!)
5. Continues to try to take over Medicine and continues to prevent patients from being able to follow their doctors' recommendations.
6. Continues to squash and trample the Will of the Majority, for the Will of Industry and to appear "tough on crime."
7. Deprives Medical Marijuana Patients of medicine and medical treatment."
I'm relocating to a tropical paradise called Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela. No surveillance cameras, no FEMA, no police state and if the clowns in DC don't like Chavez, he must be doing something right.
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