Cannabis News NORML - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws
  Penalty for Medical Marijuana Use Capped
Posted by FoM on March 24, 2002 at 08:44:13 PT
By The Associated Press 
Source: Washington Times 

medical A House committee voted yesterday to reduce the penalty for Marylanders who use marijuana for medical purposes to a maximum fine of $100.

"This bill will keep cancer patients and AIDS patients out of jail," said Delegate Donald Murphy, Baltimore County Republican, chief sponsor of the bill, after it was approved 14-4 by the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Murphy's bill set up a complex system to prohibit state prosecution of people who use marijuana for medical purposes on the recommendation of a doctor.

It involved registration with the state and listed medical conditions that could be treated.

But the committee passed a simpler piece of legislation that would require judges to consider evidence that marijuana was used for medical purposes. If a judge found someone possessed marijuana out of medical necessity, the maximum penalty would be a fine of $100.

The bill will come before the House of Delegates tomorrow. If it passes the House, the bill will go to the Senate.

Billy Rogers, director of state policies for the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, said the bill "removes the threat of prison and allows patients to use medical marijuana to treat their illnesses."

"While a judge could impose a $100 fine, it is likely most prosecutors and judges will not waste their time harassing Maryland patients if this bill becomes law," he said.

Mr. Rogers said seven states have medical marijuana laws approved by voters after referendum campaigns. Hawaii is the only state with a law passed by the legislature, he said.

People who use marijuana for medical purposes still face prosecution under federal law in those states that have eliminated state penalties.

There is disagreement in the scientific and medical communities about whether marijuana relieves nausea and reduces pressure that builds up in the eyes of people with glaucoma.

Source: Washington Times (DC)
Pubdate: March 24, 2002
Copyright: 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
Website: http://www.washtimes.com/
Contact: letters@washingtontimes.com

Related Articles & Web Site:

Marijuana Policy Project
http://www.mpp.org/

No Vote for Marijuana Bill
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12334.shtml

Marijuana Rx May Be an Option
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12278.shtml


Home    Comment    Email    Register    Recent Comments    Help

 
Comment #12 posted by goneposthole on March 24, 2002 at 20:03:04 PT
Penalty for Medical Marijuana Use
Penalty for use of a caste when your leg is broke.

Such complete fuckedness cannot be measured.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #11 posted by qqqq on March 24, 2002 at 14:12:41 PT
Right on Patrick
..the word "good",needs to be replaced by the much more accurate,proper,correct and colorful ;"less fucked"...It is less fucked to pay a hundred bucks,than go to jail,,,,but the amount of less fuckedness is questionable....If you could invent an 'omometer',that would measure fuckedness,,you would probably be as rich as the inventor of the weedeater

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #10 posted by Patrick on March 24, 2002 at 13:48:16 PT
qqqq
The only good I see is that instead of going to JAIL one gets penalized in the wallet. That's fine for Jeb Bush's kid and anyone else with money but, we all know what happens when someone who can't pay tickets because all their money goes to both basic domestic survival and their medical bills that may just include the cost of their cannabis. They will end up in jail and have what little they have confisicated by the state for failure to pay their damn penalties for having their medicine? Can you say ticket to homelessness. We are being robbed and fleeced by our politicians and they disguise it as a penalty for being sick? Nay for having a medical need? But hey we are supposed to smile and like it because its better than JAIL? Right. Feedom to pursue health and happiness? They continue to spit in our face. If a judge found Cheney possessed heart medication out of medical necessity, the maximum penalty would be a fine of 100 shares of oil stock.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #9 posted by DdC on March 24, 2002 at 13:32:02 PT
Caging Healthy Users For Spreading Jazz & Upitynes
Whatever the hell we do. we can't inject that dreadful reality and expose the fascist lies! Profit is the business of WoD...Rejecting the Dhafer Commission or any of the others including the Institute of Medicine has only one purpose. Until that secret is exposed we will still remain stigma fodder without cause, losing liberty and seeing this Mickey Mouse Congress and Kangeroo Courts maintain their vested ignorance. Profits on misery is not a measure of sucess or a way to show the world our greatness. Cannabis is illegal to keep profits in fossil fuels, chemical cotton, meat, nukes and Pharmaceuticals that aren't made in organic homegrown cananbis. Period. The danger lies in prohibition and any compromise is down right ridiculous.
Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th!
DdC

"You're enough of a pro," Nixon tells Shafer, "to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell." Shafer begins to stammer. Nixon appears to be telling his commission, in advance, what to conclude.
If there is any doubt about this, Nixon erases it instantly. He instructs Shafer not to seek input from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which he seems to think is soft on drugs, apparently because it is filled with, you know, psychiatrists:
"As an old prosecutor, I don't mind somebody putting it in J. Edgar Hoover's hands, but I come down very hard on the side of putting it in, uh, hardheaded doctors, rather than a bunch of muddle-headed psychiatrists."
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12302.shtml

Klintoon thought it would "Flout" Congress too.
http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/28/28411.gif

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

"... the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"Marihuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."

"marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
http://www.bright.net/~fixit/anslingr.htm

President Ronald Reagan, at the urging of then Vice President George Bush, appointed Carlton Turner as the White House Drug (czar) Advisor in 1981.
Soon after Turner left office, Nancy Reagan recommended that no corporation be permitted to do business with the Federal government without having a urine purity policy in place to show their loyalty. Carlton Turner became a rich man in what has now become a huge growth industry: urine-testing.

ACS - Division of Analytical Chemistry - DAC Awards
John P. Walters 1980

Nixon: "Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. . . . You know what happened to the popes? It's all right that popes were laying the nuns." "That's been going on for years, centuries, but when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual.
. . . Now, that's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don't let 'em hang around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them."
"Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us."
Just What Was He Smoking?
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12302.shtml

How many $millions has Bennet, McCaffrey and Walters made selling books and lecture time promoting the WoD? Walters not only sells pisstest he launders corporate taxes through the Philanthrapy Roundtable funding the DARE, PDFA and FRC brainwasher groups. Condemned as ineffective yet given an award by Bushit in 2001. All cannabis competition corporate interest not only removing competition with prohibition, but advertizing their own poisons in the process, TAX FREE PATRIOTS!

The Elkhorn Manifesto
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html
Cannabis Hemp: The Invisible Prohibition Revealed
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/invpro.html

Dr. Grinspoon: To Smoke Or Not To Smoke
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread9431.shtml
"One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety"


[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #8 posted by qqqq on March 24, 2002 at 13:16:29 PT
this is good,,in a way,,,,but,,,,
,,,it is an insult in a way,,,and,,it is like the;"give the dog a bone" ploy,to shut him up....I think we will be seeing alot of these type "reforms",by spineless lawmakers who want to keep the angry mobs at bay...it's like instead of cutting off a hand,,the compassionate ruler will now only sever a finger,,and,,the offender will get to choose which finger will be chopped off if they give information that leads to the arrest of another offender!

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #7 posted by Patrick on March 24, 2002 at 12:47:14 PT
Gotta love it!
If a judge found someone possessed marijuana out of medical necessity, the maximum penalty would be a fine of $100.

What's the penalty for cancer medicine your honor? Aids medicine? Arthritis medicine? Cholesterol medicine? Anti-Nicotine medicine?

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #6 posted by FoM on March 24, 2002 at 12:24:53 PT
A Basic Lesson in Common Sense
This is very good news. Every little bit helps move us closer to a common sense approach to marijuana laws but I get really worried to think that our political leaders don't understand that marijuana is not made in a factory and it doesn't pour out of the sky like manna from heaven. Hey Hey Hey! How are these sick people going to get their medicine? Common sense says you can't leave loose ends in a new law without them being worthless. They need to think this through like we all have.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #5 posted by p4me on March 24, 2002 at 11:43:33 PT
help me understand
So iof this is some 60 year old person with cancer and maybe only disability income to live on how is he supposed to afford this expensive miracle herbal remedy? If he grows a plant are you going to take his house? That is what the founding fathers had in mind I guess because the government sure is fast in seizing property and justify everything with it being the law.

It is at least moving in the right direction, but make no mistake the logic suggest only one rational conclusion regarding marijuana: It should be legal.

Now when I have spent maybe a thousand hours studying this issue, do you think I am about to change my mind. Maybe the War on Drug Ignorance will change things.

Please vote against any incumbent running for re-election. Sending them back in office and expecting a different result meets Governor Johnson's concept of insanity. Vote the bastards all the way down to dogcather out of office. If you are running against an incumbent you ought to wear a couple of VAAI buttons and shout it from every podium, we need a real big change in personnel in the ranks of our elected officials.

And execute Congress. Every single Congressmen needs to be removed for not fixing this mess. They perpetuate the Schedule One Lie which supports government terror to the millions of marijuana users and to those of the 50 million in chronic pain that use MJ as an herbal remedy.

VAAI

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #4 posted by The GCW on March 24, 2002 at 10:25:25 PT
FoM
More ground breaking - wall breaking - prohibitionist spine breaking news. (although the prohibitionist have very little spine)

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #3 posted by FoM on March 24, 2002 at 10:10:31 PT
Press Release from U.S. Newswire
Friends of Spear Lancaster Statement on The Shafer Commission
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0323-106.html

Friends of Spear Lancaster Web site: http://www.spear2002.com

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by The GCW on March 24, 2002 at 09:39:48 PT
This is a better move than what they had last year
When added to the other state efforts it is another big move. Will this realization make Joyce gag on her pretzel?

Passion and emotion on this issue stems from Truth.

Passion = compassion.

Compassion gets a score. NONcompassionists (those who piss on compassion) gets no point.

The concept of caging sick humans for using cannabis is enough to gag a maggot.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by Sam Adams on March 24, 2002 at 09:28:55 PT
what a surprise!
"Mr. Murphy's bill set up a complex system to prohibit state prosecution of people who use marijuana for medical purposes on the recommendation of a doctor."

....and the solution is....MORE GOVERNMENT! what a surprise!

[ Post Comment ]


  Post Comment
Name:        Password:
E-Mail:

Subject:

Comment:   [Please refrain from using profanity in your message]

Link URL:
Link Title:


Return to Main Menu


So everyone may enjoy this service and to keep it running, here are some guidelines: NO spamming, NO commercial advertising, NO flamming, NO illegal activity, and NO sexually explicit materials. Lastly, we reserve the right to remove any message for any reason!

This web page and related elements are for informative purposes only and thus the use of any of this information is at your risk! We do not own nor are responsible for visitor comments. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, news clippings on this site are made available without profit for research and educational purposes. Any trademarks, trade names, service marks, or service names used on this site are the property of their respective owners. Page updated on March 24, 2002 at 08:44:13