45th Parallel Patient Co-op, Ontario, Oregon. Notice: no pot leaves, green crosses, or even "marijuana" or "cannabis", but plenty of American flags. I grew up in the Treasure Valley and Ontario is a whole lot more Idaho than Oregon.
Early Thursday morning, Oregon State Police detained Elvy Musikka, one of four remaining federal medical marijuana patients, along with other state medical marijuana registry cardholders following a town hall meeting on medical marijuana in the eastern Oregon / Idaho border town of Ontario.
According to Joey Nieves, clinic manager at 45th Parallel, a medical marijuana cardholders co-operative, a state trooper had staked out the co-op to harass cardholders as they left the building. Members of the co-op were detained by the trooper who issued citations, including a $1,000 ticket for “residue” to a grower whose patient had left behind an empty pipe.
Musikka was in town as part of the 45th Parallel’s Town Hall Meeting, which took place at the Clarion Hotel earlier Wednesday evening. (Full disclosure: this reporter was a speaker at the event. I am also a registered Oregon cardholder and can verify that 45th Parallel vigorously checked my credentials before I was even allowed inside. I had to give a copy of my OMMP card and Oregon ID and initial numerous statements indicating my understanding of Oregon law.) At the hotel, an Oregon State Trooper sat parked just down the street from the public’s entrance to the Clarion’s parking lot, though I cannot verify (but strongly suspect) it was the same trooper. Nieves reports Musikka was detained for over an hour in a squad car as the trooper did not believe Musikka’s federal paperwork entitling her to possess and use her federally-produced medical marijuana anywhere in the United States.
Patients on the scene recorded the encounter on video, which has been seized by the state police. Nieves, a former Army counter-narcotics specialist, tells NORML Stash Blog that the trooper “got much more polite” once Nieves identified himself as a former soldier, but stonewalled when Nieves pointed to the actual law allowing the grower to be in possession of that pipe. Nieves reports that the trooper also denied requests for the video and the state police are giving him the runaround regarding the paperwork needed to recover the video.
Tomorrow (Friday Sep 16) we will have Joey Nieves (and possibly Elvy Musikka) on live as our guest(s) and taking your calls on NORML SHOW LIVE at 1pm Pacific on The NORML Network on Ustream.
UPDATE: I just spoke with Elvy Musikka who reports that the police took her ID and her prescription and summoned her to court on October 5th. An AP reporter was already working on a story about Elvy and in the process of getting the return of Elvy’s prescription and ID, they learned that the state troopers were being ordered by the federal Department of Justice to engage in these seizures from state-legal patients. We’re working on having Elvy, as well as Mike Mullins and Jennifer Valley from Stoney Girl Gardens, major sponsors of the Town Hall Meeting, live on tomorrow’s show as well.
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Of course I’ll post your comment!
In my view, Ms Musikka would be well served to not hang with the Valley/Mullins duo. They have done nothing but create a lot of ‘bad blood’ with far more OMMP patients, including myself, then anyone could count. If you, Russ might consider listening to Jenifer’s ignoble interview with “Bud Justice” Host of Siren Nation, on January 27′ 2011, I would be stunned if you would have her, and Michael Mullins, on your radio program any further, let alone sanction her business model or fake compassion driven advocacy. She deplores OMMP patients with abandon! Her frank view of OMMP patient cardholders is disgusting, unacceptable and speaks quite clearly as to her true motivations. The “Almighty Dollar” is THE Stoney Girl mantra! Not to mention that neither one of them (Valley/Mullins) have any “business ethics” whatsoever! So goes the neighborhood… I knew nothing of this exchange on Siren Nation when I traveled to their very first outlet store in Aloha. If I had, I would never, in a gazillion years have given them one penny of my hard earned $$$. I have already sent each of them a “Demand Letter” in preparation for “Small Claims” Court in Washington Co. I still have 15 months left before my 2 yrs “Statute of Limitations” runs out. There is not a “professional bone” in either of their bodies. I liken them to “Snake Oil Salesmen”. They’re well aware of me. I’m not finished with my complaint. If they don’t take me seriously as of now, they’ll still have an opportunity to defend their ridiculous “Dispensary” garbage that they promote to apparently very naive vendors, while they rip all of them off for not less then $15,000 dollars cash money up front to start. I haven’t seen anything that alludes to their behavior as being “A God fearing Family”, as Mr Mullins exhorts with a so called “community sensitive” talk to mostly small city councils when he makes presentations as to “Stoney Girl Gardens” so called professionalism. There is no there there! I don’t expect you to post my comment. I understand the “politics” involved in all scenarios. I have already experienced a “blind eye” attitude towards my written complaint to a wide swath of official OMMP advocates. I’m fine with that. It is what it is. I truly thought that there was a true sense of community in this process. No one wants to hear anything that smacks of abuse towards cardholding patients. That’s why this program is sadly disjointed. No “All for One and One for All!” It’s more like “Get the $$$ while you can!” I prefer “Cannabis” to “weed”. Thanks Russ for your advocacy. I learned a lot of excellent information from you when I listened to you on KPOJ, back in the day! I do believe your heart is in the right place. Sincerely, Patty
[...] proud to say that NORML SHOW LIVE was the first to broadcast word of federal patient Elvy Musikka’s harassment by an ignorant Oregon State Trooper. That incident leads the story just posted on MSNBC.com explaining to the general public that, [...]
So, you’re sayin’ the federal govt. is “Manufacturing” cannabis
And the federal govt. is “Distributing” cannabis
And the federal govt. is “Running a drug involved facility”
Wouldn’tcha just know it, those are the same charges they have against US.
Somehow I don’t think they’re going to put the federal govt. on trial right beside us. Perhaps WE should?
Well all in all, this may open up a can of worms they dont want to open. She holds 1 of 4 Federal cards that allow her to use cannabis as medicine, well a big to do over this may just show people that even our federal Government knows cannabis is medicine because they have a federal program allowing it. Many people outside the movement and even daily tokers dont know this fact. So this could in turn show them that years ago they had to know this was medicine, they gave out federal permission to do so and now they deny stats from doing the same? Dont get me wrong Im not for anyone getting harassed by police but if they are going to do it, let them try and arrest a federal card holder see what people think when they hear the federal government has a medical marijuana program for over 30+yrs. If anything the states rights people should be outraged and not that I want their support but the tea party too should go ape poop over this!
This is how life is going to be unless we stop this police state we have been living in for years now. Legalizing and ending the drug war will be the main factor to end this corruption and put these cops back in their place once and for all!
Oh and is this one of the states you cant film police? If not then I dont see how they can take anyones video, could we see a lawsuit all over this? I hope so.
[...] Oregon State Police harass Federal medical marijuana patient Elvy Musikka outside Ontario co-op [...]
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