CA Weekly Alert 3/06/2009
March 10th, 2009Posted by George Pappas
1. ASA Forces DMV to Change Policy
In response to litigation by Americans for Safe Access, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issued a new policy this week, brining it in line with the state’s medical cannabis laws. The DMV Driver Safety Procedure Manual was revised to state that, “use of medicinal marijuana approved by a physician should be handled in the same manner as any other prescription medication which may affect safe driving.” The manual states that the existence of medical cannabis use “does not, in itself, constitute grounds for a license withdrawal action.”
ASA filed suit against the DMV on November 19, 2008 on behalf of Rose Johnson, a 53-year-old patient from Atwater, whose driver’s license was revoked because of her status as a legally qualified to use cannabis medicinally. Despite Ms. Johnson’s clean driving record, not having caused an accident in 37 years of driving, the DMV revoked her license. According to the DMV, her license was revoked “because of…[an] addiction to, or habitual use of, [a] drug,” thereby rendering her unable to safely operate a motor vehicle, even though no evidence existed to substantiate this claim. In January of this year, as a result of ASA’s lawsuit and a positive driving test by Ms. Johnson, the DMV reinstated her license and issued the new policy before the case had a chance to be heard in Superior Court.
“The new DMV policy is a significant departure from how the agency approached medical marijuana in the past,” said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who represented Ms. Johnson in her claim against the DMV. “Drivers will no longer have their licenses suspended or revoked simply because of their status as medical marijuana patients.”
ASA has documented examples of the DMV policy of suspending and revoking the licenses simply for medical cannabis use in at at least 8 California counties, including Alameda, Butte, Contra Costa, Glenn, Merced, Placer, Sacramento, and Sonoma. The revocations by the DMV are often rationalized by calling the drivers “drug abusers” despite no evidence of the claim. “This DMV policy change represents a victory for patients, which puts us closer to full implementation of California’s medical marijuana law,” said Elford.
The DMV advised its Driver Safety employees of the policy change in a training session.
For more information visit ASA’s website. http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/DMV_Policy.pdf ASA’s lawsuit against the DMV: http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/DMV_Writ.pdf
2. San Bernardino Drops Charges in Marijuana Case Against Senior Citizen Cancer Patients
A year and a half ago, 74 year old cancer patient Rich McCabe and his wife JoAnne Cates were raided by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and brought up on charges of marijuana cultivation and sales, despite the fact that California Proposition 215 had been in place for over a decade at the time. The Sheriff’s department went so far as to confiscate items such as a microwave and cash from a social security check, claiming that the two senior citizens were large scale drug runners. This week, those charges were finally dismissed by Judge Rodney Cortez at the San Bernardino County Superior Court.
The seniors faced three felony drug counts for using medical cannabis in compliance with state law and to ease the symptoms associated with cancer treatment and other conditions, putting community members up in arms. ASA Affiliates, the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project in Palm Springs, hosted several events to raise money to help pay for the legal defense of McCabe and Cates. And according to attorneys Zenia Gillig and Danny Schultz, who represented the couple, the willingness of San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Jamie Adams to listen to reason was critical in getting the charges dropped.
Nevertheless, the legal process was a financial hardship, putting the two qualified patients thousands of dollars into debt because the San Bernardino Sheriff wanted to arrest a sick elderly couple who were not breaking the law, only to see the charges dropped after a year and a half of legal struggles. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is spending a great deal of county resources in a long drawn out appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight the obligation of their health department to issue ID cards to those patients who are legally qualified to use medical cannabis.
In addition, a lawsuit has been filed against the county by Scott Bledsoe to compel San Bernardino to start issuing state-mandated medical marijuana ID cards and to stop arresting qualified patients.
3. Palm Springs Moves Forward with Dispensing Collectives
The Palm Springs City Council passed an ordinance this week that allows two nonprofit medical cannabis dispensing collectives to operate in industrial zones within city limits.
The ordinance, set to go into effect in 30 days, will allow groups to apply and be evaluated by the City Manager and City Council, who will then rank all qualified applications and grant regulatory permits to the two applicants who come away with the highest rating. The city has yet to announce a date when applications will be accepted, however, the measure will go into effect after 30 days, making Palm Springs the first city in Riverside County officially to allow medical cannabis dispensaries. Local activists have been working for years to educate council members in the area of the need for safe access to cannabis. Finally the consistent pressure and education of the city council has begun to pay off, as this ordinance is a milestone for medical cannabis progress in the Inland Empire.
The move by the Palm Springs Council comes after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical cannabis dispensaries in states that have passed relevant laws will not continue under the Obama Administration Justice Department.
