Breaking News, April 5, 2007…

The Colorado Health Department recently responded to Rob Corry’s Colorado Open Records Act request for all documentation and evidence bolstering the State’s arbitrary limit of five patients per caregiver. The State admitted that its decision to limit patients’ rights was arbitrary and that the State possessed no logical basis, studies, scientific documentation, nor any other evidence to support its harmful limitation. “The State obviously picked the number five completely out of a hat,” Corry said, “this would be laughable if people weren’t suffering as a result of it.” There are many medical marijuana patients who are unable to grow or obtain their medicine without the help of a courageous and knowledeable caregiver. That is why the voters provided that people can act as caregivers for medical marijuana patients. The five-patient limit unreasonably restricts a patient’s choice of caregivers.

As with most arbitrary government actions, the State refused to reveal the secret government memo creating this five-patient limitation and refused to name the lawyers who concocted the limit. There is no law that authorizes the State to restrict patient choice. Neither the legislature nor the voters approved this restrictive policy, which was enacted without public comment in a secret meeting.

Plant war update
by Ari Armstrong, Boulder Weekly

Apparently we Americans have nothing better to do with our resources than to wage war on an herb and those who use it for medicinal or recreational purposes. But the war on the plant marijuana is a failure. It doesn’t work. And it wastes money, undermines our liberty, creates violence, funds criminals and corrupts law enforcement. Following are a few news items from the front.

On Jan. 4, Sensible Colorado (SensibleColorado.org) sent out a press release about James and Lisa Masters of Fort Collins. The release states, “The Masters, who are both medical marijuana patients and caregivers, are charged with one count each of felony marijuana cultivation… They are the first medical marijuana caregivers to go to trial in Colorado and the defense team, led by attorneys Rob Corry and Brian Vicente, will pursue the Caregiver Defense arguing that Colorado’s Amendment 20 allows caregivers to cultivate and sell marijuana to seriously ill individuals.”

Vicente said, “The Masters are being targeted for providing help to sick people.”

Check out Joshua Zaffos’s two outstanding articles for the Feb. 8 Colorado Springs Independent (csindy.com) for more information about the case. One twist that Zaffos recounts in his piece, “Tokin’ opposition,” is that, while Vicente was “schooling a roomful of defense lawyers on how to represent medical marijuana patients,” Larimer Deputy District Attorney Thomas Lynch was caught observing the meeting and was ejected.

The persecution of medical-marijuana providers is obscene. The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights. In this case, government agents are actively violating people’s rights. State agents are initiating force against citizens who are both innocent of wrongdoing and physically disabled.

Does marijuana work? It is not the legitimate job of politicians or law enforcement agents to make such calls. It is a decision properly left to patients and their doctors. But the evidence is in: Marijuana is effective for some medical uses.

For example, Sabin Russell writes for the Feb. 12 San Francisco Chronicle, “Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital reported today that HIV-infected patients suffering from a painful nerve condition in their hands or feet obtained substantial relief by smoking small amounts of marijuana in a carefully constructed study funded by the State of California.” The full study, led by Dr. D.I. Abrams, may be found in Neurology’s Feb. 13 edition (neurology.org).

According to a Feb. 14 e-mail from the Marijuana Policy Project (mpp.org), David Murray of the White House drug czar’s office replied, “People who smoke marijuana are subject to bacterial infections in the lungs. Is this really what a physician who is treating someone with a compromised immune system wants to prescribe?”

But practically all drugs have side-effects, and it is the responsibility of doctors working with their patients, not stooges of federal “czars,” to make such decisions. Besides, marijuana can be consumed in ways other than smoking, and presumably that would maintain the health benefits while eliminating the problems related to smoke.

However, even some drug-war insiders are questioning some of the excesses of this war. A Feb. 13 article by Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers (linked through The Denver Post’s web page) reports, “In an emphatic but nonbinding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s own judge [Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner] is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow a legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering from painful and wasting diseases, proponents believe.”

Ironically, the professor, Lyle Craker, is working on vaporizers, a technology that reduces the risk of smoke. “The Bush administration… has remained hostile to Craker’s research efforts,” Doyle reports. So this administration simultaneously criticizes medical marijuana for its unhealthy smoke and undermines efforts to remove this risk.

While the government’s war against the sick is particularly heinous, the general marijuana war is also immoral and impractical.

A Feb. 13 AP article reports, “A judge has resigned to protest a proposal to impose stiffer city penalties in Lafayette for marijuana possession. Leon Frieling, a Boulder attorney, resigned Monday as an associate municipal judge, citing an ordinance that would set a fine of up to $1,000 and a jail term of up to a year for marijuana. The existing city fine is $100, the same penalty set under state law.”

A Feb. 16 e-mail from SAFER (SaferChoice.org) reported that the Lafayette council withdrew the measure. SAFER warns, “Although this particular ordinance has been killed, it may be back in a couple months.”

Finally, a new report indicates the massive failure of the war on marijuana. Jon Gettman’s “Marijuana Production in the United States (2006)” is available at DrugScience.org.

The executive summary states, “Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States, more valuable than corn and wheat combined. Using conservative price estimates domestic marijuana production has a value of $35.8 billion…

“Despite intensive eradication efforts domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold over the last 25 years from 1,000 metric tons (2.2 million pounds) in 1981 to 10,000 metric tons (22 million pounds) in 2006, according to federal government estimates.”

Colorado ranks 27, with an estimated 67,514 plants, 29,768 pounds, and a cash value of $47,807,000. This war has been lost. It is an immoral war that should never have been started. It’s time to end it.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

AIDS patient’s pot trial delayed
An attorney says a doctor would have to testify by phone about advising the use of medical marijuana.
By Monte Whaley
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/05/2007 01:00:00 AM MDT

Brighton - The trial of an AIDS patient accused of flaunting Colorado’s medical-marijuana law was delayed Wednesday because of the unavailability of a key defense witness.

The attorney for Jack Branson, 39, wants Dr. Cynthia Firnhaber to testify that she verbally recommended in 2002 that Branson use medical marijuana. The drug helps Branson deal with nausea and loss of appetite caused by HIV.

But attorney Robert Corry said Wednesday that it’s nearly impossible for Firnhaber to come to Colorado since she is working in South Africa fighting AIDS.

“We looked for months, and we were finally able to locate her,” Corry told Adams County District Judge C. Scott Crabtree. “It’s quite a hardship.”

Corry asked that Firnhaber be allowed to testify by telephone. Crabtree set a July 20 hearing to decide and scheduled a Aug. 27 jury trial.

Branson faces charges of cultivation of marijuana and possession of more than 8 ounces of marijuana, both felonies.

Branson has lived with the virus that causes AIDS for 20 years, said his mother, Margaret Branson. He also has hepatitis B and a slipped disc in his back. The marijuana allows Branson to control his nausea so he can take medication needed for his survival, she said.

Under Colorado’s medical- marijuana law, doctors can recommend marijuana for patients they believe would benefit from it. But Branson was not registered with the state as a medical-marijuana user when he was arrested in October 2004 after police found up to 12 marijuana plants in his backyard.

Colorado’s law allows patients to have six plants. Branson has since registered with the state.

If convicted of a crime, Branson could lose his Medicaid or Social Security benefits.

Prosecutor Trevor Moritzky told Crabtree he is leery of any telephone testimony. “There is no way of knowing the person on the phone is the person they say they are,” Moritzky said.

Adams County district attorney’s spokesman Michael Goodbee said prosecutors will not seek prison time for Branson if he is convicted.

Still, Goodbee said, Colorado’s medical-marijuana law - including provisions limiting the amount of pot - must be strictly followed.

“The voters passed the law with the idea that people would comply with all its provisions,” Goodbee said. “We are simply seeking compliance.”

Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.

The witch hunt continues
Paul Campos
April 3, 2007

THORNTON - Jack Branson sits in the cluttered living room of the modest house he rents from a family member on the ragged edge of this Denver suburb. On the table between us are vials containing eight different medicines.

Branson, a slightly built man who will turn 39 the next day, is seriously ill. For nearly 20 years he’s lived with the HIV virus that causes AIDS; in addition he has hepatitis B, and a slipped disc in his back. Some of the medicines keep him alive, while others, including oxycodone and methadone, help control the chronic pain in which he lives.

Like many people with HIV, Branson finds it difficult to tolerate the drugs that suppress the virus. Indeed, the drugs tend to make him so nauseated that on several occasions he stopped taking them, causing him to develop full-blown AIDS.

And, like many other seriously ill people, Branson discovered that by smoking marijuana he could control the nausea well enough to take his medicine regularly. It was precisely to help people like Branson that the voters of Colorado amended the state’s constitution in 2000, to allow doctors to recommend marijuana for patients they believed would benefit from it.

Six years ago, a doctor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine - an expert on the treatment of AIDS - told Branson he ought to smoke marijuana if that would allow him to take his medicine regularly (each time Branson stopped taking the medicine his body became more resistant to its effects).

The Colorado medical marijuana law doesn’t require a doctor’s recommendation to be in writing, and Branson began to grow a few marijuana plants in his backyard, Eventually he had 14 plants, which, given the relatively short Colorado growing season, was only enough to supply him with enough medical marijuana to get him through two thirds of the year.

In October of 2004, the North Metro Drug Task Force, a local law enforcement consortium that gets considerable funding from the federal government, showed up at Branson’s house. They didn’t have a warrant, but according to Branson they told him they would do serious damage to his house if he forced them to come back with one.

Branson had every reason to believe he had done nothing illegal (he in fact has no criminal record of any kind), and he consented to the warrantless search. He was then charged with felony cultivation of a controlled substance, and possession with intent to distribute.

Branson shows me the approximately 10-foot-by-4-foot plot of earth where he had grown his plants. “This is the east side and this is the west side of the plot,” he tells me. “I labeled the bags in which I kept the marijuana East and West, depending on which side of the plot the plants came from. The drug task force’s theory is that I intended to distribute the stuff on the East and West coasts.”

Branson’s lawyer, Robert Corry, describes himself as a strong Republican (he was the Republican committee counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in Washington in the 1990s.) In other words, he’s hardly a bleeding-heart liberal, yet he’s genuinely outraged by what the government is doing to his client. He estimates that Branson’s trial, which starts tomorrow, will cost the taxpayers of Adams County at least $100,000.

That seems like a steep price to pay for the privilege of persecuting a harmless, desperately ill man, who doesn’t appear to have committed a crime in even the most technical sense, and who might well die in prison if he’s sent there.

Prisons don’t allow medical marijuana use, and Branson says he would consider a prison sentence of more than six months to be the equivalent of capital punishment, since he probably can’t live longer than that without his HIV medicine.

I suppose in our government’s eyes that outcome would just prove once again how dangerous smoking marijuana really is.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.

Media Advisory: April 2, 2007
Contact: Brian Vicente, Executive Director, 720 280 4067

Colorado AIDS Patient to Face Jury Trial- and Potential Death Sentence- for Medical Marijuana in Adams County.

Patients and Supporters to protest in front of Courthouse.

Brighton, CO – On Wednesday, April 4, 2007, Colorado medical marijuana patient Jack Branson will face a felony jury trial in Adams County. Branson, who uses medical marijuana to treat the nausea and loss of appetite arising from his treatment for HIV, believes that if convicted and sent to prison, he will die without access to medical marijuana.

Branson was arrested in October 2004 when officers from the North Metro Drug Task found about a dozen marijuana plants in his Thornton home. He currently faces charges of felony cultivation and possession with intent to distribute. These charges carry a sentence of up to 6 years in prison.
The morning of the trial, Colorado medical marijuana patients and advocates will be holding a protest at the Adams County Justice Center. Protesters will ask the Adam’s County District Attorney’s office to call off its prosecution of Branson.

“The Adams District Attorney’s Office should have higher priorities then prosecuting a sick man for growing his medicine,” said Brian Vicente, medical marijuana advocate. “We call on the prosecutors to use their discretion to drop this case and allow Mr. Branson to cope with his illness in peace.”

WHAT: Jury Trial of Medical Marijuana Patient, Jack Branson
Protest to ask the Adams District Attorney’s Office to cease prosecution
WHEN: Wednesday, April 4, at 8:30 am.
WHERE: 1100 Judicial Center Drive, Brighton, CO 80601
WHO: Jack Branson, Patient and Defendant
Colorado Medical Marijuana Patients and Activists

Sensible Colorado is a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and advocate for effective and humane drug policy in Colorado. Learn more about Sensible Colorado at www.sensiblecolorado.org.

###

http://co.mpp.org/site/c.ghKLI0PHIoE/b.1769727/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={C0A6DFC3-9D65-4631-B0F1-062E11443BA1}&notoc=1

Act now to save a Colorado medical marijuana patient’s life

In October 2004, officers from the North Metro Drug Task Force (from the Denver area) knocked on the door of Jack Branson, a medical marijuana patient in Thornton, Colorado. Branson consented to a search of his home. The officers then arrested him for growing marijuana, which he does to treat the nausea and loss of appetite arising from his treatment for HIV.

Branson was using the marijuana after an oral recommendation from his physician. She did not want to put her recommendation into writing because she feared losing her job at Colorado University, a federally funded facility. His doctor later moved out of the country and now teaches in South Africa.

The Colorado State Constitution allows people who do not have written documentation, but who do have an oral recommendation, to assert medical necessity as a defense in medical marijuana cases. By now, Branson has obtained a written medical recommendation for the use of medical marijuana. However, because his first doctor is on another continent, he may not be able to obtain her testimony. You can read more about the case here.

Jack Branson now faces felony charges for growing his medicine. Colorado voters clearly did not intend for bona fide patients to be arrested and threatened with felony drug convictions when they passed the medical marijuana law. If Branson is convicted and sent to prison, he believes that, without his medicine, he will die.

The trial is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4th in Brighton, Colorado. In a sensible world, this case would never come to trial, because the prosecutor would use his reasonable discretion not to pursue the case. Thus far, however, the Adams County District Attorney’s office has not chosen to use such discretion.

Here is what you can do to help Jack Branson — and perhaps save his life:

1. Write a letter to the editor to either the Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News calling on the prosecutor to drop the case against Jack Branson. Click here for information on how to send a letter by email or fax to the Rocky Mountain News. You can send a letter to the Denver Post at openforum@denverpost.com (only straight text; no attachments). Please remember to keep all letters short, at fewer than 150 words. Don’t attack the prosecutor personally — instead, point out that sending a sick man to prison is unjust and a poor use of state money, and call on the prosecutor to use his discretion to drop the charges. Please do this as soon as possible as the trial is only days away.

2. Contact Adams County District Attorney Don Quick and ask him to dismiss the case. Point out that while technically possible, a conviction would violate the spirit of the Colorado constitution and be a grave injustice. You can call D.A. Quick at (303) 659-7720 or fax him at (303) 835-5522. Don Quick is a decent man and well respected, so please be respectful in calling upon him to do the right thing. If you prefer to mail a letter, please do so right away, as the trial is Wednesday. The mailing address is: Don Quick, District Attorney, 1000 Judicial Center Drive, Suite 100, Brighton, Colorado 80601. (You may want to use an overnight carrier.)

3. Call into any local talk or news radio stations in your area (especially if you are in Adams County or the greater Denver area), expressing your support for Jack Branson and calling for the dismissal of all charges against him.

4. Appear at the trial to support Jack. Please dress appropriately and do not bring provocative signs. Supporters will be meeting at the main entrance to the Adams County Justice Center at 8:30 a.m. (again, on Wednesday, April 4). The address is 1100 Judicial Center Drive, Brighton, CO 80601. Click here for directions. Supporters will hold “Stop Arresting Patients” signs and protest outside, and then will have the chance to move into the courtroom and sit behind Jack Branson, showing their support. A strong presence will help ensure that justice prevails, so please come if you can.

If you take action and do any or all of the above, please e-mail MPP Legislative Analyst Anthony Wagenseil at awagenseil@mpp.org, so that we can monitor developments in the case.

Thank you for supporting the Marijuana Policy Project. Please pass this alert on to your friends and family in Colorado as soon as you can, so that they may also learn about this story and take action.