Charlie Lynch learned that the hard way [that Prop 215 didn't protect him], when federal authorities raided his home and small business in southern California in March 2007.
“I hear the banging of my front door,” Lynch recalled. “I opened the door and about 10 to 15 agents with shields, bullet-proof vests, guns, masks, they came barreling in.”
Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 30 pounds of marijuana from Lynch’s business. The action wasn’t a surprise to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Pat Hedges, who had been investigating Lynch for about a year.
“They sent in undercover sheriff’s deputies to go encourage Charlie to break the federal law,” Lynch’s lawyer, John Littrell, said. “In every case, what they found was that his employees always verified doctor’s recommendations. No one could manage to get anybody, Charlie or anyone that Charlie was working with, to dispense marijuana in a way that violated state law.”
After a year, the sheriff handed information over to the federal government’s DEA that Lynch had been selling marijuana. Even though California allows medical marijuana, federal law classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic — the same as heroin. Under federal law, Lynch was no different from a common drug dealer.
“Marijuana, under federal law, is a more serious narcotic than crack cocaine,” said Reuven Cohen, another of Lynch’s lawyers.
Lynch was hauled into federal court, which meant that his attorneys could not even mention the state law that permits the use of medical marijuana. Lynch was convicted and faces up to 100 years in federal prison.
This is a snippet from a story appearing this Friday, March 13, on a special hour with ABC News 20/20′s John Stossel called “Bailouts, Big Spending and Bull.” Stossel also tells the story of teenager Owen Beck, who lost a limb to cancer and sought medical marijuana from Lynch’s dispensary. That teenager who bravely fought through chemotherapy had a doctor’s recommendation for cannabis, the only medicine that would ease the pain and nausea and allow him to eat, and the federal prosecutors framed it as if Lynch was the local high school kids’ dealer of choice.
My favorite line, though, comes from the profile of cancer survivor, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge, who also procured her medical marijuana through Lynch’s dispensary:
“When it comes to the medicinal use of this herb, it is nothing about getting high,” Etheridge said. “You’re not getting high. You are trying to get to a place of normal.”
A place of NORML, indeed.
Loading ...
