SACRAMENTO, CA -- David Davidson was given a 41-month sentence when he appeared in federal court this morning, but the former medical marijuana grower won’t have to give up the next few years of his life.  Having served nearly all of his sentence while waiting for his case to resolve, the 59 year old is now a step closer to home and a new beginning.  Davidson will soon be transferred from Sacramento County Jail to a halfway house in Iowa, where he will be close to his girlfriend.

The length of Davidson’s sentence was no surprise – both sides agreed on exactly 41months in the recommendation submitted to Judge Morrison C. England Jr. late last year.   What remained to be determined today was whether Davidson’s sentence would include an order to pay criminal fines.

Medical marijuana grower Bryan Epis has been caught in a legal nightmare ever since 1997, when law enforcement agents seized 458 marijuana plants and various computer documents from his home in Chico, CA.  That raid occurred mere months after California voters legalized medical marijuana statewide, and Epis’s case quickly inspired outrage in the activist community.  Not only was he charged with criminal cultivation, prosecutors used documents taken from the search to charge him with conspiracy to cultivate over a thousand plants.  Epis was unable to mount a medical defense to his charges because he was prosecuted on the federal level, where state medical marijuana laws don’t apply.  When the case went to trial in 2002, prosecutors relied heavily on out-of-context excerpts from the seized computer documents, which had been printed from different computer programs in a manner that made them appear as a series of separate documents involving various locations.  The jury ended up finding Epis guilty and he was given the mandatory minimum sentence: ten years in federal prison.  Epis was incarcerated for over two years before getting released on bail pending appeal in August 2004, a move that gave him five and a half years of freedom to spend with his young daughter.  However, in spite of claims of prosecutorial misconduct and missing evidence, Epis lost round after round of his appeal.  By February 23rd, 2010, he had exhausted his legal options and was taken back into custody to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.

BRYAN EPIS  X-3311197  6E316A
Sacramento County Main Jail
651 "I" Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Sign and help circulate a petition to pardon Bryan Epis, visit www.bestlodging.com/politics

From LA TIMES

As an $8.7-million state research effort comes to an end, investigators report that cannabis can significantly relieve neuropathic pain and reduce muscle spasms in MS patients. More research is urged.

With an innovative but little-known state program to study medical marijuana about to run out of money, researchers and political supporters said Wednesday the results show promise.

"It should take all the mystery out of whether it works. We've got the results," said former state Sen. John Vasconcellos, who led the effort to create the 10-year-old Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.

Betty Aldworth, director of outreach for Full Spectrum Laboratories, a marijuana testing facility, was at the State Capitol to watch lab co-owner Bob Winniki testify about Senator Chris Romer's just-introduced bill dealing with the relationship between doctors and medical marijuana patients.

But before Winniki could speak, the twosome received an e-mail letting them know members of the Drug Enforcement Administration had stopped by the lab. And by the time they got back to the facility, Aldworth says, "it was full of DEA agents" and other local law-enforcement types, who spent the next several hours seizing all the marijuana testing samples they could find.

Article continues on Denver Westword News Blog

Norman de Vall's medical marijuana forum, with guests Pebbles Trippet and John McCowen, is available to download or listen to online.  The 90 minute show has been broken up into three approximately 30 minute segments:

1. http://www.mmmab.net/NdV_931_Kelly_102110_1.mp3
   
2. http://www.mmmab.net/NdV_931_Kelly_102110_2.mp3
   
3. http://www.mmmab.net/NdV_931_Kelly_102110_3.mp3
   

The topic of the show was planned as dealing with both the existing 25 plants per parcel Public Nuisance Ordinance, MCC 9.31, in effect since February 2008 and it's bloated 37 pages of proposed revisions, being championed by Supervisor McCowen, but as yet not voted on by the Board of Supervisors.  Inevitably, it was often not clear whether the current ordinance or the proposed revisions were being discussed.

It was also a sure thing that the discussion would wander back and forth between that discussion and today's momentous decision at the CA State Supreme Court in the landmark Kelly case, and of course it did though it was not confusing when that took place.

The general tone of the show was less adversarial than has often been the case in the recent past. Phone in guests included Sheriff Allman, Attorneys Omar Figueroa and Katharine Elliot and many others.  You won't get ironclad answers on everything, since many of the issues will be decided in the seven patient plaintiff's legal challenge of the county's MCC 9.31, to be heard in Superior Court next month.  Stay tuned.

The California Supreme Court today upheld a state appeals court ruling that voided California's medical marijuana growing restrictions, calling them unconstitutional.

Anticipated widely as "the Kelly decision," in effect it also voids Mendocino County's Measure B which enacted the state limits - 12 immature plants or six mature plants and 8 ounces of dried marijuana - as the county's growing and possession limits.

The court kept alive the voluntary ID card system for patients agreeing to limit themselves.

At issue is Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Act which legalized medical marijuana in California in 1996. The CUA did not limit the amount of marijuana a patient could grow or possess except to a reasonable amount consistent with the patient's medical needs.

Story continues on the Ukiah Daily Journal website.

312K PDF file of the CA Supreme Court's Kelly decision:  http://www.mmmab.net/Kelly_S164830.PDF

With New Jersey's endorsement of medical marijuana, there may be no stopping the rehabilitation of cannabis from illegal drug to legitimate therapy.

Late yesterday, Gov. Corzine signed a law making New Jersey the fourteenth state to legalize medical pot. Four more states and the District of Columbia are expected to follow suit by year's end.

Story continues here.