State medicinal marijuana laws supreme, SCOTUS says

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 06:23:56 AM MST

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by a California city that asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling requiring police to return medical marijuana that they seize from a patient.

In the November 2007 ruling, a state appeals court said California's medical marijuana law entitles patients to recover pot wrongfully seized by police.

What's this mean?

"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joseph Elford, chief counsel of the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access and lawyer for the plaintiff in the Garden Grove case.

In short, this should give incoming Attorney General Steve Bullock all the assurance he needs to ensure that police and other law enforcement officials complay with Montana's law allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

I like Dominic Holden's quote from a post relating to this decision:

The very notion of a "Drug Free America" has always been, as some famous dead guy once said, about creating laws in conflict with human nature in order to punish people. Cops now have to capitulate with drug laws they disagree with.

Hey! Maybe Scott Sales would like to take up legislation akin to Massachusetts to decriminalize possession of marijuana?