High court upholds medical marijuana law | greatfallstribune.com | Great Falls Tribune
HELENA — Montana courts cannot bar medical marijuana patients from using the drug as a condition of their probation or parole, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The decision overturned a lower court’s ruling that prohibited a Conrad man from using marijuana while serving a three-year deferred sentence.In Tuesday’s 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court found that District Judge Laurie McKinnon overstepped her authority when she barred Timothy Nelson of Conrad from using medical marijuana as a condition of his sentence.
At a Feb. 26, 2007, sentencing hearing, Pondera County Attorney Mary Ann Ries told the judge that officials at the Department of Corrections would not allow Nelson to smoke marijuana while under their supervision, but would allow him to use the pill form of marijuana.
Whoops, excuse me. There is no pill form of marijuana. There is a pill form of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Marijuana does contain delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, but it also contains cannabinol, cannabidiol, cannabigerol, cannabichromene, cannabicyclol, cannabivarin, tetrahydrocannabivarin, and about 60 other cannabinoid compounds. Calling Marinol a pill form of marijuana is like calling a shot of rum the pill form of a strawberry banana daquiri. Small detail. Anyway, carry on…
McKinnon gave Nelson a three-year deferred sentence subject to 20 conditions. Nelson appealed two of those conditions on the basis that they illegally prevented him from using medical marijuana.
Those two conditions were that Nelson comply with all city, county, state and federal laws and that he not possess or use illegal drugs, or any drugs, unless prescribed by a licensed physician. Since physicians cannot legally prescribe marijuana because of federal licensing restrictions, that condition barred Nelson from using medical marijuana. That same sentencing condition also stated that Nelson may not possess marijuana, except in pill form, and only then by prescription from a licensed physician.
Nelson’s attorneys, Justin Lee of Choteau, and Colin Stephens of Missoula, argued that the pill form of marijuana, Marinol, is cost-prohibitive for their client, which contradicts the intent of the Medical Marijuana Act of 2004.
In his appeal, Nelson said McKinnon’s sentencing conditions were illegal because it restricted him to using Marinol, and that the court exceeded its authority in requiring him to obey all federal laws.
The Supreme Court agreed.
“The District Court unlawfully denied Nelson the right and privilege to use a lawful medical treatment for relief from a debilitating condition under the Montana Medical Marijuana Act,” Justice Patricia Cotter wrote in the majority opinion.
Law enforcement just cannot divorce itself from the concept that marijuana equals crime. In their view, how in the world could you allow someone on probation or parole to use pot? Pot is a crime to them, period. Not even the smoking of it, mind you, but the pot itself is criminal.
Have you thought about that? We have huge helicopter-riding task forces whose job it is to find and rip up any marijuana plant they find. Even if it is an untended, wild, low-THC feral hemp plant, it is illegal and must be destroyed. Even if no man had ever seen it and it was growing just out of the bounty of Nature herself, it is a crime and must be obliterated.
So you can see how they can’t imagine that cannabis is a medicine, and a judge denying it to someone as a condition of probation or parole is as cruel as denying them insulin if they were diabetic.
