This post is by Alison Holcomb, drug policy director of the ACLU of Washington.

Let’s be clear: Senate Bill 5073, the medical marijuana legislation moving through the state legislature, isn’t perfect. Different stakeholders with different motivations have made a lot of changes to it along the way. It’s no one’s ideal bill. The bottom line is whether it helps patients. And for patients, this bill is a tremendous improvement over current law.

Before I came to work for the ACLU of Washington, I was a criminal defense lawyer for more than a decade. I defended King County’s first medical marijuana trial. I have represented and counseled too many patients.

A memory that will never fade is my first meeting with a couple who had just experienced a raid on their rural Washington home. A dozen men dressed in black and carrying semi-automatic weapons crashed through their front door before dawn. The couple jumped out of bed and ran to the hall. Their teenage son had done the same. This couple’s first image that morning was strangers in black shouting at their son to get face down on the floor while pointing guns at his head.

These were police, not robbers.

I struggled to maintain my professional demeanor as I watched this boy’s father tremble, try to fight back tears, and haltingly tell me how helpless he felt, how scared he was that his son was about to die.

His wife, you see, was a medical marijuana patient, and she was growing her own supply of plants. She was also growing some marijuana for another man who had cancer. The marijuana helped him keep food down. He died shortly after the couple was raided and their plants destroyed.

Everything that happened to this family, and to the patient they tried to help, is perfectly legal under our current medical marijuana law. Patients have nothing more than an “affirmative defense”—the opportunity to present a defense at trial, after they’ve already been raided, arrested, and dragged through court.

This has to stop.

No one suffering a terminal or debilitating medical condition should have to live in fear that people with guns might break down the door and terrorize their family.

SB 5073 can change that. It would create a patient registry with the state Department of Health that officers would be required to check before seeking a search warrant. It would exempt registered patients from arrest, search, and prosecution. And because the ACLU is concerned about the security of registries, we’ve worked with the UW Computer Science & Engineering Privacy & Security Lab to ensure this registry will feature state-of-the-art privacy-protecting features. We’ve also made sure that patients who don’t want to register still maintain the affirmative defense, plus they would get a new protection from arrest.

SB 5073 would also make dispensaries explicitly legal under state law (they’re in a gray area at best right now), licensed and regulated by the Department of Health. Cannabis growers and processors of edible products would be licensed through the Department of Agriculture. These are crucial improvements, given the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2009 memorandum committing to a policy of not going after individuals in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state law. Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington issued cease-and-desist letters to all of the dispensaries operating in Spokane because they “are not authorized under state law.” So, Spokane patients are now forced to grow their own supply (assuming they are healthy enough, have appropriate space, and don’t have to start chemo tomorrow), or send their loved ones to the black market to buy them cannabis of unknown provenance.

That is, unless our legislators pass SB 5073.

(Want to hear more? Check out “Why Legislators Need to Pass the Medical Marijuana Bill” on the ACLU home page.)

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14 replies on “Olympia, Stop the Raids on Sick People”

  2. It’s so awesome to see such a well written piece here on Slog focusing on patients rather than the typical hysterics over lost advertising revenue for The Stranger. You’re right when you say this bill isn’t perfect, but it’s a huge leap in the right direction. Progress unfolding right before our eyes.

    Thank you Alison.

  4. The bill as amended today 4/8 will kill access to medical cannabis for almost every medical cannabis patient in the state.

    No arrest protection for non-registered patients. Not even in the interim until they setup the registry which will initially require monies from the general fund. Not likely to happen with our state’s current financial situation.

    Most doctors will not give medical cannabis recommendation for fear of loosing their jobs. We need cannabis pain management specialist to obtain a recommendation. The bill as amended will make any doctor that is “solely” making medical recommendation for cannabis illegal.

    http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdoc…

    Yes we need improvement over current law but 5073 as amended will hurt patients not help.

  6. Who are these cops who will enter a house in this way for this reason? Surely they must be told they are raiding a cancer patients house, for medical marijuana usage, right? Who in their right mind would agree to do it this way?

  8. Even in california, things still get sideways when it comes to law enfarcement. It appears there are still too many government goons that count on enforcement of archaic laws to provide them with an excuse to exist and collect a fat pay check. Thanks for writing this and for doing your part to end the insanity

  9. FYI, bad idea to smoke pot while on chemo. Chemo knocks out your immune system, leaving your body unable to kill the (normally harmless) funguses naturally occuring on pot. Aspergillus will likely colonize your lungs and you will probably die before your immune system can bounce back enough to fight it off.

    If you’re going on chemo, for the love of god, SWITCH TO BROWNIES.

  10. If this bill passes with the amendments proposed, you will not longer be able to grow your own medicine or even participate in collective gardens. Washington State will run the medical cannabis industry. How is that protection for the patients when they can put whatever price they want on it? Oh yeah, and it’s not covered by health insurance either… go figure.

  11. Aspergillus? More people die from aspirin OD’s. This is just another scare tactic. You need to check with oncologists and docs who specialize in AIDS and ARC and recommend the plant to their patients.

    This bill it TERRIBLE, as it stands and the ACLU knows that and should NOT be stating that it’s better, cuz it makes access to docs and meds MUCH more difficult. It would essentially remove all patients whose own doctor won’t write a rec from the MMJ roles, and we would once again (or shall I say still) be living in fear of being arrested for trying to stay alive.

    The ACLU has a power-hungry politician heading things in our state, who obviously could care less about the many patients who would suffer greatly when this bill passes. Her public outcry should be heard across the state, and yet she writes a press release only for the Stranger. She has the ability to put more pressure on legislators, and to make her stance much more public. It seems to me she is only serving her own personal interests for political gains. I would put money that she runs for office in the next couple of years.

  12. I am a patient and think the aclu is fluffing 5073 up because they represent the canna industry. Big whoop if you took a couple mmj cases!!! Its you job right… Just like the cops will create more grey area out of your compromised bill. You all are going to monopolize the permits and drive patients to the streets. Wake up patients these people are selling out 69.51. This bill doesn’t represent stakeholders but a kabal who are setting themselves in line for mmj industry to come.

  13. a few posts above, the user indicates that this bill will hurt the patients. I just got done reading the entire bill, I see nothing that would hurt the patient, it is clearly defined what’s what, for a change.

    It offers protection for the physician’s as well as registered patients. it allows you to grow 15 cannibis plants, for you and another qualifying patient., those who got something else out of this bill, may need to read the sections again.

  14. Pharmer… You didn’t read the amendments. It says that the STATE is responsible for producing ALL Medical Marijuana. That patients are no longer allowed to grow for even themselves, and it requires that each county have only 1 dispensary, and that that dispensary only acquire it from the state “Marijuana Factory” KILL THIS BILL!

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