Pubdate: Thu, 18 Dec 2014
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2014 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: Jennifer Brooks

MOM FIGHTS CHARGES IN MEDICAL POT CASE

MADISON, MINN. - Minnesota mother Angela Brown, who gave her son an 
illegal drug that will be legal by this time next year, appeared in 
Lac qui Parle County court Wednesday morning, where her attorney 
appealed for the charges against her to be dismissed.

Brown stands accused of two gross misdemeanor counts of child 
endangerment for giving cannabis oil to her son Trey, who suffered 
seizures and agonizing pain from a head injury.

By July, medical marijuana will be legal in Minnesota. But since that 
law isn't in effect yet, the Lac qui Parle County attorney opted to 
prosecute Brown after an official at Trey's school tipped off child 
protective services. Brown is charged, not with possession of the 
small amount of cannabis in the dropper bottle, but of endangering 
her child by involving him in a drug transaction.

"I didn't harm my child," said Brown, a 38-year-old mother of three 
from Madison. "I really don't want any other mother to have to go 
through this, and that's why I'm putting myself out there. Because 
this is not me. This is absolutely not me, being in front of all of 
these cameras and having all these people converge into my life."

Supporters, some who had driven in from out of state, crowded the 
courtroom Wednesday. The court did not take action on defense 
attorney Michael Hughes' request for the case to be dismissed and 
will revisit the issue early next year. County Attorney Rick Stulz, 
who brought the case, did not appear in court and the attorney 
representing the county said she would respond to the request for 
dismissal after the New Year.

Trey was with her in the courtroom, and the 15-year old smiled shyly 
at the banks of cameras and reporters who turned out for a case that 
has drawn national and international attention. Before he tried the 
cannabis oil, his mother said, the muscle spasms from his traumatic 
brain injury would leave him curled in a fetal position or in so much 
pain he would punch the walls or hit himself hard enough to break his 
nose and crack his collarbone. The improvement after he tried the 
marijuana tincture - which the family bought legally from a 
dispensary in Colorado - was dramatic, his mother said.

"This simply is not a situation where someone has endangered their 
child," said Hughes, an attorney from Oregon who volunteered to 
defend Brown. The statute, he said, was meant to protect children 
found in meth houses, not a child swallowing drops of cannabis oil to 
help with the seizures and pain he has suffered since being hit by a 
baseball line drive three years ago.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom