Pubdate: Tue, 01 Nov 2005
Source: Daily Vanguard (Portland State, OR Edu)
Copyright: 2005 Daily Vanguard
Contact:  http://www.dailyvanguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2834
Author: Caelan MacTavish
Cited: The Emperor Has No Clothes http://www.jackherer.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Jonathan+Magbie
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Steven+Tuck
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA UP IN SMOKE

How Government Undermines Its Constituents

As if the U.S. "war on drugs" was not absurd enough, a lawsuit filed 
in September has now proclaimed its first marijuana-related casualty.

Jonathan Magbie, a quadriplegic, was sentenced in 2004 to a 10-day 
jail sentence in Washington, DC for possession of one joint. He died 
four days into his sentence.

What makes his death even more horrific is that Magbie was arrested 
contrary to the will of DC voters. In 1998, 70 percent of voters 
approved a medical marijuana law, similar to the one here in Oregon. 
It never took effect, however, because Rep. Bob Barr (of the "get 
government out of our lives" Republican Party) legislatively killed 
the initiative on the federal level. He tacked on an amendment to an 
appropriations bill that would have denied the city any money at all 
for the year if local officials attempted to "enact or carry out" any 
democratically approved initiative that would reduce criminal 
penalties for possession of any kind of drug.

DC caved to keep its city running. Although the amendment was found 
to be unconstitutional the next year, a federal appeals court 
reinstated it in 2002, preventing people in wheelchairs from legally 
smoking pot.

At his hearing, Washington DC Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin 
could have given Magbie probation, since it was his first criminal 
offense. But after the judge asked whether Magbie would continue to 
smoke marijuana in the future and he replied that he would, she 
sentenced him to 10 days in jail.

While in custody, Magbie, who was paralyzed in a car wreck when he 
was four, saw his health rapidly deteriorate. He required a 
tracheotomy tube, a pulmonary pacemaker, and a ventilator at night to 
breathe in his sleep. Doctors at the Department of Corrections did 
not have the equipment to sustain his health, and despite Judge 
Retchin's knowledge of this, she sentenced him and Magbie died four 
days later on Sept. 24, 2004.

Two weeks later, U.S. Army veteran Steven Tuck was lying in a 
Canadian hospital bed. He fled to Canada after his plants were raided 
in California by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Tuck smoked marijuana 
to alleviate chronic pain from a 1987 parachuting accident.

Canadian authorities arrested Tuck on his gurney, drove him to the 
border, and delivered him to U.S. agents, and he then spent five days 
in jail -- all with a catheter still attached to his penis. He was 
offered no medical treatment during his stay in the hospital, and his 
lawyer, Doug Hiatt, said, "This is totally inhumane. He's been 
tortured for days for no reason."

Extradition for drug use is becoming a common phenomenon, as the "war 
on drugs" goes international. On July 29 DEA agents in Vancouver, BC, 
arrested Marc Emery for selling pot seeds to U.S. citizens on the 
internet. The U.S., which has engineered prison time for Emery while 
they try to extradite him to America, wants to charge him in U.S. 
courts for activities that took place in Canada, and give him a life 
sentence for a crime that does not warrant jail time in Emery's home country.

How much further will this madness go? According to figures released 
by the FBI, there were 771,605 arrests for marijuana in 2004. 
Approximately 686,000 of these arrests were for marijuana possession, 
not distribution. All violent crimes combined totaled 590,528 arrests 
in the same year.

Our prisons are bursting with potheads, while violent criminals are 
set free to make room for more. Are laws that ban marijuana 
possession really making us safer?

"The Emperor Has No Clothes," by Jack Herer, the most comprehensive 
study of marijuana in existence, shows marijuana has been used 
medically for thousands of years. The recent criminalization and 
anti-drug rhetoric contradict all known evidence about marijuana. 
Some FBI agents who routinely give lectures on the dangers of 
marijuana have never heard of Herer's book. Dedicating themselves to 
arresting a marijuana user every 41 seconds, their manpower to track 
and detect potential terrorism is significantly reduced.

It is time to concede the "war on drugs" and let the drugs win. It is 
not working; it is a constant destabilization to our society. The era 
of marijuana prohibition, only 68 years old, needs to end. As Oregon 
doctor Fred Oerther says, "More Americans die in just one day in 
prisons, penitentiaries, jails, and stockades than have ever died 
from marijuana throughout history. Who are they protecting? From what?"

They certainly did not protect Jonathan Magbie. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake