California Appeals Court: MedMJ patients need not get doctor renewals
Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am | By: Radical Russ
Ruling overturns Redondo medical marijuana decision – The Daily Breeze
Three justices from the 2nd District Court of Appeals decided Wednesday that state law does not require “a patient to periodically renew a doctor’s recommendation regarding medical marijuana use.”
In addition, the justices ruled that it should be left to a jury to determine if the amount of marijuana a patient possesses is related to their medical needs or exceeds the law.
[Christopher] Windus, 39, was arrested Dec. 14, 2004, after police officers searched his room at the Palos Verdes Inn and found approximately 1.6 pounds of marijuana.
Before his trial began, Windus tried to convince Torrance Superior Court Judge Andrew Kauffman that he should be allowed to present a defense based on California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996.
In 2003, the state Legislature clarified the law to allow qualified patients or caregivers to have no more than 8 ounces of dried marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.
Dr. William Eidleman told the judge that he consulted with Windus in 1999 and 2001, and gave him written recommendations for the medical use of marijuana for chronic back pain.
Eidleman said Windus ingested marijuana, which requires four to eight times more of the drug than smoking it. He said it would be appropriate for Windus to have 3 to 6 pounds of marijuana in his possession.
After hearing from the witnesses, the judge said he found Windus was legitimately a medical marijuana patient, but that no physician had recommended he possess more than 8 ounces of the drug at any time.
This week’s decision overturned Kauffman’s ruling and sends the case back to the trial court level
The California courts decided earlier this year that SB 420, the bill that limited patients to eight ounces, was unconstitutional because the legislature does not have the authority to amend an initiative passed by the people. They’ve also given quite a bit of deference to the doctor-patient relationship and resisted attempts by lawmakers to thwart medical marijuana, like we saw in the decision last week in San Diego forcing that county to issue state-mandated medical marijuana ID cards.
If only our federal courts were so understanding…
