Pubdate: Wed, 10 Oct 2007
Source: Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO)
Copyright: 2007 The Fort Collins Coloradoan
Contact: http://www.coloradoan.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.coloradoan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1580
Author: Sara Reed
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

JUDGE IN MEDICAL MARIJUANA CASE SCOLDS STATE AGENCY

A District Court judge in Fort Collins issued a  strongly-worded 
rebuke today to the Colorado Department  of Public Health and 
Environment for not complying with  a court order related to a 
medical marijuana case.

Chief Judge James Hiatt threatened the agency with a  contempt 
citation and told an attorney from the  Colorado Attorney General's 
office to turn over  information on medical marijuana patients for 
whom  James and Lisa Masters of Fort Collins acted as primary  caregivers.

"Your client (individuals from the Colorado Department  of Public 
Health and Environment) needs to get  appropriate appellate relief, 
comply with the order or,  option three, someone is going to wind up 
in jail,"  Hiatt told Anne Holton, an attorney with the attorney 
general's office, during a scheduled hearing today.

The Masters, who are medical marijuana patients, were  arrested and 
charged with cultivation and distribution  of marijuana last summer. 
Those charges were dropped in  June after it was ruled the search of 
their home was  illegal.

Now the couple has been fighting to get back the  equipment and 
plants seized from their home more than a  year ago. However, that 
process was delayed until late  next month because the depart-ment 
still refuses to  produce the records.

As part of the process, Hiatt required prosecutors to  subpoena the 
records from the health de-partment, which  administers the medical 
marijuana program. The agency  appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court 
but that was  denied.

Amendment 20, passed in November 2000 to establish  Colorado's 
medical marijuana program, re-quires the  department to maintain a 
confidential database of  medical marijuana patients. Holton said 
that privacy  should be balanced against the prosecution's need 
for  the records. The prosecution's need for the records  does not 
rise to the level to justify breaching the  confidentiality of the 
medical marijuana program, she  argued.

"The process we are in now is not a criminal  proceeding," Holton 
said. "The DA's interest is not in  prosecuting but in retaining 
seized evidence."

Hiatt disagreed and at one point called the delay  unfair to the 
parties involved. Hiatt gave the  department until 5 p.m. Monday to 
turn over the  records. If the records have not been submitted by 
that time, Hiatt said he would issue a contempt citation.

"You can't just say 'we still disagree with the order,'  " he said.

Rob Corry, one of the attorneys representing the  Masters, said after 
the hearing he was gratified that  Hiatt and prosecutor Michael 
Pierson seem to be taking  the matter so seriously but that there is 
some  frustration in the delay.

"This is medicine that people need," he said.

Corry argued in court that because the charges against  his clients 
were dropped that they were en-titled to  get back their property, 
including the seized  marijuana. In an order issued in June, Hiatt 
said a  hearing on the matter was necessary because the medical 
marijuana component of the case was never addressed by  the 
resolution in the case.

Prosecutors have objected to the property being  returned, citing 
that neither James nor Lisa Masters  were registered medical 
marijuana patients at the time  of the seizure nor was there any 
docu-mentation that  they were serving as caregivers for other 
medical  marijuana patients.
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