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LITIGATION
Court / appeals decisions, patient / caregiver trials, civil lawsuits, administrative petitions
Feds first prosecution of Oregon medical marijuana reveals shocking details
DEA agents photographed 455 large marijuana plants growing at the site and raided the farm on Oct. 5. Agents seized the plants and found 2,000 pounds of semi-dry marijuana in a barn, the affidavit states. Afterward, agents dried the marijuana and found that it weighed 1,022 pounds, the court document says. Agents also found 2,000 pounds of recently harvested buds in an outbuilding and in the back of a 20-foot Mitsubishi box truck, the affidavit says.
Florida Governor’s plan to drug test state workers ruled unconstitutional
Every case about drug testing that comes up requiring state workers to pee in a cup gets squashed because the Fourth Amendment applies to the government trying to violate our privacy. But when it comes to the private sector, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply, because we the workers are just engaging in a voluntary employment relationship with our corporate overlords. Gosh, if you don’t like it, you can just work elsewhere, except that every place you could work with your particular skill requires a pee test. After all, jobs are plentiful and easy to find and you always have the freedom to just be homeless.
Wisconsin teen wins $265,000 settlement over public strip-search case
The city of Beloit, WI, has just settled a lawsuit out of court brought by a 16-year-old boy. He was in a parked car with two other boys when police received a call reporting “drug activity”. When the officer noticed a bulge in the teen’s pants during a routine pat down, the teen said it was his genitals.
NORML Attorneys file lawsuit over New Jersey’s failed medical marijuana program
So when somebody asks me what NORML has been doing lately to legalize marijuana, I point to one of our members like Anne Davis and say, “Providing five years of mentoring and networking for the lawyer who’s going to sue Gov. Chris Christie into finally implementing a medical marijuana program AIDS, cancer, and MS patients, that’s what!”
Montana landlord facing more prison time for leasing to medical marijuana providers than serial raping arsonist
While Montana landlord Jonathan Janetski may be sitting in prison for three years for providing a business space for medical marijuana providers to help sick people get their medicine, guess who’ll be out walking the streets sooner? Serial raping arsonist Kyle Eugene Avery, who may only do six months in prison.
11-year-old won’t pee test to join school orchestra, ACLU sues
Because we all know what kind of hotbed of drug activity a middle school orchestra can be… QUARRYVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) - An 11-year-old girl is suing the Solanco School District in Lancaster County over a policy that requires random drug testing of students in extracurricular activities. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said it filed [...]
NORML joins suit to reconcile California medical marijuana rulings
The state’s high court recently agreed to accept four cases involving marijuana dispensaries. Two more cases may be on the way, including the appeal of a Feb. 29 ruling in Orange County that said cities can’t ban cannabis stores but that such stores have to grow all of their pot on site – a requirement dispensaries say is impossible to satisfy.
Michelle Alexander: Go to trial, crash the justice system
AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”
Oregon growers win case; drying marijuana is not usable marijuana
Theoretically speaking, with my caregiver card, I could be sitting here with 24 ounces of dried buds and six mature plants with ten pounds of bud on them apiece. I could chop off a branch each week and dry it and so long as I’ve gone through my dried pound-and-a-half before the pound-and-a-half on the branch dries, I’ve never broken the law. In fact, theoretically there is no limit to how much weight in wet bud I could be drying here, so long as no more than 24 ounces of it is dry at one time.
City of Albuquerue Must Pay for a Woman’s Destroyed Cannabis Plants
Toni Armijo will be getting some compensation from the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department for her destroyed cannabis plants. She did, however, have to wait quite awhile for this payday. In August of 2010, a neighbor of Ms. Armijo called the police concerned that she was suicidal. When the police came to do a wellness [...]