Dear Everyone;
Good news for medical marijuana users - transporting large amounts is not a crime under California law - with a doctors prescription.
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
Justices: Pot patients can't be convicted of transporting drug
The Associated Press
Nov 28, 2006 12:20 AM (12 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 8,720 of 9,352 articles
SAN FRANCISCO - Marijuana users cannot be convicted of transporting narcotics if they can prove the drug was being used for personal medical reasons, the California Supreme Court ruled.
In a 6-1 decision Monday, the justices interpreted a law signed in 2003 by then-Gov. Gray Davis that they say filled a gap in Proposition 215, the state's medical marijuana initiative. The proposition, passed in 1996, repealed criminal penalties for possession, use or cultivation of marijuana by patients and their caregivers, but it failed to address whether it protected patients or their caregivers from being prosecuted for transporting marijuana.
The court also said the 2003 law applied retroactively to cases that were pending then it took effect.
However, the justices ruled against the Orange County man who brought the case, upholding his conviction for transporting more than a pound of marijuana in 2001.
Although jurors in the trial of Shaun Eric Wright should have been told that he was entitled to transport the drug because he had his doctor's recommendation to use it for chronic pain, they also "found beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the drug with the specific intent to sell it," Justice Carlos Moreno wrote for the majority.