Seattle police seize marijuana patient files
Local News | Seattle police seize marijuana patient files | Seattle Times Newspaper
Seattle police seized files on nearly 600 medical marijuana patients when officers searched the headquarters of a patient support group, activists said Wednesday.The search occurred Tuesday after a nearby police bicycle officer reported the smell of marijuana. Martin Martinez, who runs the Lifevine cooperative as well as Cascadia NORML, the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said no one was arrested but officers seized about 12 ounces of marijuana in addition to the patient files and a computer. There were no marijuana plants growing there, Martinez said.
The police “have a heck of a lot of patient records I don’t think they should have,” said Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney who specializes in medical marijuana cases. “For one thing, those records are protected under federal privacy laws. If you’re a medical marijuana patient, you don’t want the police to know who you are or where you live, and this is why - because you don’t get treated very well.”
Hiatt and Martinez said that before the search they tried to convince the officers as well as a deputy King County prosecutor there were no violations of the medical marijuana law.
Under Washington’s medical marijuana law, doctors can authorize patients to have as much as a 60-day supply of marijuana to treat symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other debilitating or chronic conditions. The law doesn’t define what a 60-day supply is, but the state Health Department proposed this month that it be defined as 24 ounces of usable pot, along with six mature plants and 18 immature plants. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
According to Hiatt, the seized documents included patient authorizations, full medical histories, and the names of doctors who authorized the marijuana use.
Alison Chinn Holcomb, who follows marijuana issues for the Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that the group was providing or growing marijuana, and no information that has been revealed thus far would seem to justify seizing the patient files.
“These are very sick people with very serious conditions, and we’re sure none of them want the nature of those conditions made available to the public or to anyone who doesn’t have a valid need for it,” she said.
I have to wonder why Seattle police are involved in a marijuana case when the city overwhelmingly passed I-75, the initiative that makes enforcement of marijuana laws the police’s lowest priority. A cop on a bike smelled some marijuana? Was all other crime at a stand-still at that moment?
This is another instance where law enforcement is intimidating lawful medical marijuana patients through the seizure of patient records. We had a similar case in Oregon where the DEA subpoenaed patient records from an Oregon clinic. That was thrown out by the presiding judge as an unreasonable seizure.
Why would they do this? Simple - to get people afraid of putting their names “on a list”. A 2006 Zogby poll asked people whether they would support “treating marijuana like alcohol by taxing and regulating it.” 55% of the people on the West Coast agreed with the “relax it and tax it” idea. They know the tide is turning. And as I go around gathering signatures for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, the only negative response I get from supporters of the measure is, “I don’t want to put my name down on some list!”
Tags: patient records, Seattle, Washington
July 17th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Thankfully the patient files were returned tonight and Martinez was assured that the records were not reviewed or copied. I think the biggest issue in this case was the fact that the building also housed other stores and appartments and there were complaints about the odor from smoking. Martinez said that he didn’t know that the smoke was drifting from the clinic.
All things considered I think this was handled very well in the end.