Jump to content

State Challenges Medical Marijuana Defense


bobandtorey

Recommended Posts

 

 

Prosecutors are challenging an Iowa cancer patient's use of a medical marijuana defense at his upcoming trial.

Assistant Scott County Attorney Patrick McElyea filed a motion in the case against 47-year-old Benton Mackenzie. He, members of his family and a friend are set to be tried June 2 on drug conspiracy charges.

"We're objecting to use of a medical defense," McElyea said during a hearing Wednesday in Scott County District Court, Davenport.

McElyea cited a 2005 Iowa Supreme Court decision to support his motion. That was a case very similar to the one facing Mackenzie.

Lloyd Bonjour, an AIDS patient in his 60s, was arrested in Floyd County and charged with manufacturing marijuana after sheriff's deputies say they found marijuana plants and bagged marijuana in his home.

Prior to going to trial, Bonjour sought a medical necessity defense and was denied by the judge after prosecutors resisted. He even had his physician testify at a pretrial hearing that Bonjour takes a variety of toxic medications with side effects.

Bonjour was tried before a judge and found guilty. He appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled against him, urging further study by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy and the Iowa Legislature.

"It would be inappropriate now for us to leapfrog the Legislature and the Board of Pharmacy Examiners by simply recognizing the medicinal value, and the legality, of marijuana use," the nine-year-old Supreme Court ruling states.

The state's legislative landscape for medical marijuana has changed in the past few months, if only slightly. Earlier this month, lawmakers legalized a limited amount of marijuana in the form of an oil concentrated with cannabidiol, or CBD, for people who suffer from severe epileptic seizures.

Mackenzie, who shared his story with the Quad-City Times in September, says he was extracting cannabis oil from the plants he grew at home to treat his angiosarcoma, a terminal cancer.

"That's the whole basis of my case," he said in court Wednesday.

Scott County District Judge Henry Latham said he plans to file a written ruling next week on the medical defense issue. He urged attorneys to file arguments on how the recent legislative action may or may not apply to Mackenzie's case.

 

http://qctimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/state-challenges-medical-marijuana-defense/article_ce2e4bd6-19c1-5b07-b512-b0333b46ae0a.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A ruling on a medical defense issue? WTF? Why can't a person raise any issue they want in their defense? This is asinine.

 

I bet the persecutor and the judge are afraid that a jury would let the guy walk if they were allowed to hear the truth. When the heck did the truth become hostage to a persecutor's or a judge's whim?

 

Let the guy tell his story to a jury you bunch of chicken schits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is same sex marriages more important than the mm law, the mm law was voted on, the same sex marriage thing wasnt, but the same sex marriage has already gotten their hearing date with the federal supreme court, our laws imo are stuck in senate here in the state!  It is b.s,  people that want to marry the same sex dont need it to be legal, wtf If my buddy has better ins than me we could get married and I can stay with my woman, but reap the bennys of my friend who only wants to date young woman?

 

we have normal couples (meaning a man and a woman) who dont get married becuase it may screw them up at tax time, and we have same sex people that want to get married so one of them can stay at home and reap the bennys ie, medical, retirement. ssi,etc!

 

I realy dont care if people like to have sex with the same gender, but common sense says it is wrong, men and woman are different for a reason, and the reason is reproduction, I know a few female mates that have children, I coached one boy in base ball, I was asked to work with the young man, at 13 yrs old he would not keep his eyes open when the ball was coming at him, I lived right next door to his grandpa, who is a great neighbor, I made the mistake of telling this young boys mom's to bring him over to our house to hang with my son, they are the same age and my boy is all boy, I made the mistake of actualy saying william is all boy bring him over we will play all sports with him, they yanked him off the team and I havent seen the kid in any sports since, but he sure is the best dressed young man in our school!

 

I have nothing against gay's accept they think they should have more rights than I, they dont deserve the same rights as a man and woman who are married, and they should not be allowed to be married, wow way off topic here eh?  I guess waking up to the news today and hearing that the gays already have a supreme court hearing set me off!

 

Now I have nothing against people who are gay, for men as long as they dont bother me im good, for woman,,,,well what can I say anyone that likes woman is ok with me!

 

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about my wife and I who don't ever plan on having kids?  I don't think they have any more rights than any hetero couple, They are fighting for the same rights, like both of them being "classified" as family so they can see each other in the hospital.  It's so they can care for the their child if anything ever happens to one of them so they don't become wards of the state.  My sister in law and her wife are on their second child while me and my wife don't have any and won't.  And they are a hell of a lot better with kids than most of the hetero couples I know.  Sorry, that touched a nerve with me.  If your not "against" them than you should be working towards taking away all the "benefits" that make them unequal and give them an advantage over single people.  Why does the gov't have a right to say who gets what unequal treatment when it should be a right for a person to choose whatever partner he/she wishes.  It's just another case of the government pitting people against each other by controlling privilidges that should be rights.  It's the gov't treating people unequally that creates the problem.  If WE all just stood together against the gov't there wouldn't be the problems we have with the gov't. Gay people smoke pot too!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I could have wrote my post better! I dont like that the government is willing to put the michigan bann on gay marriages ahead of the mm law and revisions, we have alot of people that would benifit medicinaly from extracts and supply centers!

 

even if people who have children are of the same sex they can both adopt the baby! it dont take a marriage certificate to prove they are good parents, I never said they were good parents or not, I even said even though im not gay I could use that law to my bennifit, Im not married to the love of my life, I could do a fake marriage with a friend to recieive his bennys, retirement, and most things a divored or widowed couple would get, Gay people can make wills and leave their better half there homes and bank accts and life ins all that stuff!

 

a hetrosexual male may under stand the comment I made about the women thing, see I find men to be disgusting lol, but I dont find females to be discusting, woman are soft, they smell nice, there beautiful, they have a mothering instinct and they realy do like to take care of a good man or woman, I truly can understand female gays more than men gays!

 

Im 51 it most def was taboo when I was growing up, people have come out of the so called closet and it is being accepted more and more in society, people are going to do what they want to do either way no matter what the government says about it,  Kinda like the voting for women and black americans took a long time to catch up to the men in this country!

 

I was like 5 yrs old when they had the detroit riots, my old man was a cop and gone for quite a while at a time on riot patrol, I remember the national gaurd blocking off the roads 3 miles from where I live on 11 mile and harper and all the way down an angle to the southern edge of the grosse pt's, I was around when they wanted to send the kids from the suburbs to schools in the city and kids in the city to our school, I remember the signs in our windows that said hell no we wont go!

 

Why does our government allow the MI bann on gay marriages to go to the supreme court when we have bills sitting in limbo that will never get any kind of attn before summer break, wtf our senate and reps are not kids in school or school teachers, why do they get the summer off?

 

Any way sorry to upset you Norby and im sure there are others who wont like my post's, sometimes I just have to get it out of me!

 

Peace

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not upset about your opinion, you're more than entitled to that. Just upset about the gov't setting up these standards in the first place.  Since both women have a child, if they were in a different state and one of them had both kids if the one that wasn't her birth child got sick she couldn't make any executive decisions on the child's care and may not be able to see the child in the hospital. I don't think they can adopt while the other parent is still alive.  She may not be able to take the kids to Canada for the day.  I've just heard a lot of the crap they're going thru because of the gov't standards.  There are lots of "benefits" (what should be rights)lined up only for man and woman "families".  If it wasn't for the inequalities created by gov't favoritism I couldn't care less what anyone thinks about it as it wouldn't affect them.

 

The reason they do it is to line their pockets or win constituents or both.  They do it to pit us against each other so we don't notice how corrupt the system is and if we all got along they wouldn't be needed.  We see how they create fear to keep us from being able to care for ourselves. They create problems and fear to fight against each other to build careers for themselves and their opponents.  If everyone stuck up for everyone else they wouldn't be needed. I know it's not as simple as that but you get the drift.  It's to pit people against each other by using their fear and bias and entitlement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...