(NBC New York) A somerset County man who tried to use a medical defense for several marijuana charges received a split verdict from a jury in Somerville.
John Wilson suffers from MS and was caught growing 17 pot plants at his rental home in the summer of 2008.
Despite his attorney’s effort to use Wilson’s medical condition as a defense, the jury convicted him on a “manufacturing” charge, as well as a separate count for possession of a baggie of psychedelic mushrooms.
However, the jury did find him not guilty on the most serious charge of maintaining a manufacturing facility for marijuana.
Wilson faced up to 20 years on the drug manufacturing charge, much to the frustration of medical marijuana advocates.
Police say Wilson never denied growing the marijuana when they came to his house on August 18th, 2008 after a National Guard helicopter spotted the plants from the air.When they searched his home, they also found two sandwich bags of pot, along with another small bag of what turned out to be illegal, hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Two sympathetic state senators want Governor Jon Corzine to pardon Wilson before Corzine leaves office January 19th.
Those two senators, Nicholas Scutari and Ray Lesniak, are also leading an effort in the lame duck legislature to pass a Medical Marijuana law before Republican Chris Christie takes office that day. Although Christie has said he supports Medical Marijuana, it is not clear he would approve the current version before the legislature.
Chris Goldstein from NORML New Jersey and the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey called me to break the news this afternoon. “It seems that the jury understood that drug facility charge was a mis-application of a statute that was intended to shut down cocaine and meth labs,” he told me.
So Wilson avoids the twenty year mandatory minimum, but is still awaiting sentencing on the cultivation and mushroom charges. He is out on bail until then.
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THE WAR ON THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
We the people in this country had better get our heads out of the sand. We are loosing our country to the big corporation lobbyist who runs our government. In case you haven’t noticed our government is no longer a government for the people. It does not matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat, makes no difference. We are all loosing our Constitutional Rights!! We have our government telling every state in America to ignore their citizen’s rights, to not let the citizens of this country vote for what they want. We the people don’t get a say in any important decisions made in this country. We let the fat cat politicians make laws and go to war in the name of the people? Wake up America! They don’t give a Shit about Us! They could care less that the majority 85% of this country doesn’t want us involved in any of the three wars we are now spending billions on. Why are we in these wars that are killing our men and women and costing us billions? Why do we give a shit about anything that goes on in the Middle East when our country is going broke and our infrastructure is falling apart? It’s not about the Taliban, or Terrorist or rights for the people. Wake Up People! It’s about controlling the oil and gas in Kuwait for the oil and gas companies! It’s about controlling the Poppy Fields (Opium) in Afghanistan for the pharmaceutical companies. It’s about Big Bucks!! They think we are Stupid, that we are a bunch of Morons, well you know what, maybe we are! The American People are being thrown under the bus while our government continues to lie, cheat and steal from us! We the People of this Country should be Outraged and Protesting in the streets, like they did in the sixties to stop the senseless Vietnam War!! But, there is another war, a Forth War that this Country is fighting! It is Bigger, Scarier and more Destructive than all the other wars put together!
This War everybody is loosing, every person in America! We are paying dearly, by sacrificing our Constitutional Rights, The Bill of Rights, our Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters! This War throws away our Values, Beliefs and Dreams. This War destroys Everything We Built this Country on, FREEDOM! What war, you ask? It’s called:
“THE WAR ON DRUGS”
This War is really the “WAR ON THE PEOPLE”! Most Americans don’t really care about what’s going on as long as it doesn’t affect them but this War On Drugs is affecting every citizen in America. Most people don’t realize how Bad it really is. This drug war is not about drugs, its about Greed, Power and Control, it’s about stripping all citizens of their constitutional rights. What is the goal of this war? To rid society of drug addicts, eliminate the ability for citizens to treat themselves, or to feel good? Was it to keep drugs from our children? Children have easier access to cigs, alcohol and drugs from their parents medicine cabinets, Americans learn about drugs from all the pharmaceutical companies advertising on TV and Radio. There are more people addicted to pharmaceuticals and alcohol than any other substances put together. America has spent Billions on this war and there are more drugs on the street than ever before. They are cleaner, stronger and cheaper than ever before. We have lost many of our constitutional rights, 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments, trashed the bill of rights and filled up all of our prisons with people that are recreational drug users and addicts not criminals. As long as its illegal the Cartels, Dictators, Terrorist and Corrupt Leaders, including our own, get richer. What was the goal for this war on drugs anyway, I forgot? I put a couple clips together to help you to understand what I’m talking about and what’s going on in this country. Please watch with an open mind and see if you think this sounds like America, Home Of The Free to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqd_C9ISPjA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W75JBgClSU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_VlUej-Uu8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UHdJ7MNxfI&feature=watch_response
Americans are under attack by our own government. They are murdering innocent Americans, destroying lives and families, making ordinary citizens into criminals, Felons!! Our country is being torn apart, destroyed, taken over from within. These terrorist are Americans being paid by how much than can take from ordinary citizens and our tax money. These terrorist can arrest you, take your land, houses, vehicles and all your belongings, if you rent they have you evicted! You don’t even have to be charged with anything! They can arrest anyone they suspect MIGHT commit a crime and call it CONSPIRACY! Does this sound like AMERICA? Does this sound like THE HOME OF THE FREE? How can this be going on in America? How can they get away with this? Who are these terrorist? They are our own law enforcement, our DEA agents and all they have to say to the American people and to the people around the world to get away with all of these atrocities is: “THE WAR ON DRUGS” It should be called “THE WAR ON THE PEOPLE” WE should be OUTRAGED by what’s going on in our country!!! Everything I mentioned is happening to NON-VIOLENT, RECREATIONAL USERS of pot, mushrooms, meth and coke. What’s going on? IS THIS AMERICA or THE NEW WORLD ORDER???? GOD BLESS AMERICA and THE WAR ON DRUGS!!!
On December 15, 1991, America celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. On October 2, 1992, we mark the 10th anniversary of an antithetical undertaking–the War on Drugs, declared by President Reagan in 1982 and aggressively escalated by President Bush in 1989.[3] This country’s Founders would be disappointed with what we have done to their legacy of liberty: The War on Drugs, by its very nature, is a war on the Bill of Rights.
When the Founders rebelled against British tyranny, they grounded their cause in a belief in the natural rights of the individual and the Enlightenment ideas of progress through reason. Understanding the dangers of an excessive concentration of political power, they divided and limited the reach of that power through a federal structure with the states, the separation of powers among the three branches, and the guarantees of personal freedom in the Constitution itself and in the Bill of Rights.
With the War on Drugs, however, the wisdom of the Founders has been cast aside. In their shortsighted zeal to create a “Drug-Free America” by 1995, our political leaders–state and federal, elected and appointed–have acted as though the end justifies the means, repudiating our heritage of limited government and individual freedoms while endowing the bureaucratic state with unprecedented powers.
That the danger to our freedom is real and not just a case of crying wolf is confirmed by the warnings of a few judges, liberals and conservatives alike, who, insulated from elective politics, have the independence to be critical. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, denounced compulsory urinalysis of Customs Service employees “in the front line” of the War on Drugs as an “invasion of their privacy and an affront to their dignity.” In another case, Justice John Paul Stevens lamented that “this Court has become a loyal foot soldier” in the War on Drugs. For his part, Justice Thur good Marshall was moved to remind the Court that there is “no drug exception” to the Constitution.
But these have been futile dissents. In a rare majority opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared that the drug crisis does not license the aggrandizement of governmental power in lieu of civil liberties. Despite the devastation wrought by drug trafficking in communities nationwide, we cannot suspend the precious rights guaranteed by the Constitution in an effort to fight the “War on Drugs.”
In that observation, the court echoed a ringing dissent of the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court:
If the zeal to eliminate drugs leads this state and nation to forsake its ancient heritage of constitutional liberty, then we will have suffered a far greater injury than drugs ever inflict upon us. Drugs injure some of us. The loss of liberty injures us all.[
This Is A Must Read, Don’t Believe? Here’s some scary facts!
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb109/hb_109-24.pdf
Are you a patriot? Do you Love this Country? Do you want to help this Country and the American Citizens in it? Then Please Send This To Everybody You Know!!! America Thanks You!!!
Doing any time is too much time. I do not see any victory when another person suffers as a “drug war” prisoner…prohibition has to stop. The ramifications of his medical condition, what happens to his credibility, his family, finances, being labeled..for what? Because he sought treatment that was better than pharma co’s offer.
If you have the time I suggest putting together some posters and do what a group is doing in King Co WA, Christmas day stand outside of the jail. It would be great if this was contagious and it was done around the nation, heck around the world for that fact. WE NEED TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY!
See, that’s what scares me about all the “good” news lately and all our efforts.
Is this time our “Fall of the Berlin Wall” and ushering in of a new era or is it just another “Tianemem Square” moment that results in nothing concrete.
Only we can decide that…we need more people getting active and advocating our cause.
[...] NJ MS patient John Ray Wilson acquitted of most serious felony drug charge [...]
yeah and it happened yet!
Good news so far!
“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.”
- Jimmy Carter, U.S. President quote on Marijuana