Posted on 11/26/2005 5:10:56 AM PST by JTN
The federal war on medi-pot patients hit a new low last month when Royal Canadian Mounted Police nabbed 38-year-old Steven W. Tuck from his Vancouver, B.C., hospital bed, whisked him to the border, and relinquished him to the custody of U.S. officials, who wanted him on charges related to a 2001 marijuana bust in California. Tuck, an Army vet, uses marijuana to help treat chronic pain associated with injuries he received in a parachuting accident back in the 1980s (reportedly his parachute failed to open during a jump). In 2001, after his marijuana-growing operation in California was busted, Tuck fled to Canada in an effort to avoid prosecution, reports The Washington Post. For four years, he had been navigating the Canadian system, seeking asylum, but was abruptly, and surprisingly, denied that safe harbor last month, says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML.
Police arrested Tuck on Oct. 7 after he checked himself into a Vancouver hospital seeking treatment for prostate problems. According to friend Richard Cowan, Tuck was on a gurney, fitted with a catheter, when RCMP nabbed him, cuffed him, and put him in an SUV bound for the border. "I would not believe it unless I had seen it," Cowan told the Post.
Tuck was turned over to authorities and thrown in jail, where he remained for five days with the catheter in place and with only ibuprofen for his pain – pain for which he'd been prescribed morphine and Oxycontin, among other narcotic drugs, says St. Pierre. He was finally taken to court on Oct. 12. "This is totally inhumane," Tuck's lawyer Douglas Hiatt told the Post. "He's been tortured for days for no reason." U.S. Magistrate James P. Donohue re-leased Tuck, at least temporarily, so that he could be taken to a hospital. Tuck's trip to the hospital was waylaid, however, by law enforcement officials who immediately picked him up on a detainer issued by Humboldt Co., Calif., officials in connection with state drug charges related to his growing medi-pot for him-self and others. (Although Tuck is a California state-registered medi-pot patient – meaning he's authorized under state law to possess and grow marijuana for medical purposes – he was also growing for others. At the time, California law enforcers were working under a patchwork of local regulations that defined who could grow for dispensary purposes and exactly how much each person could grow. Tuck had been busted in two different California jurisdictions for growing more than the local law allowed.)
After a flurry of phone calls, Tuck was taken to the hospital, and since then his attorneys have negotiated his release from jail – with the promise that he'll make his various California state court appearances. Sources tell "Weed Watch" that given Tuck's medical condition and the current state of California's medi-pot laws, his supporters are cautiously optimistic that the state charges against him will be dropped. If that happens, whether Tuck will face any prosecution will be left solely up to the feds, who want him on one count of unlawful flight to Canada to avoid the California charges. Whether the federal narcos will exercise their right to bully the sick remains to be seen.
The drug thugs.
Theme song here: I fought the law and the law won!
Too bad, try a legal drug next time.>>>
.... and BINGO was his name-o!
In other words,he was a dealer.And,under Federal law,that "state registration" thing isn't worth a thing.
The minute the word "dealer" is injected into the discussion,any sympathy I might have had flies out the window!
Freedom means being able to make bad choices as well.>>
Ah, the standard libertarian fantasy. "Let people make their own decisions!"
Libertarians are romantic Republicans; they think that mankind was born good and that civilization makes him bad. Wrongo. "Man is Born Good" is a slogan over every commie mass grave in the world. But Man is not born good; he is fundamentally evil, and needs society and law to live a decent life.
And one of those laws is to keep a certain green leafy substance off of the grocery store shelves so that stupid fourteen year olds can't all get stoned all the time. Deal with it.
Not exacltly, the devil is in the details....
Although Tuck is a California state-registered medi-pot patient – meaning he's authorized under state law to possess and grow marijuana for medical purposes – ,he was also growing for othersAt the time, California law enforcers were working under a patchwork of local regulations that defined who could grow for dispensary purposes and exactly how much each person could grow. Tuck had been busted in two different California jurisdictions for growing more than the local law allowed
Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals>>
But the life of the individual without government is, to coin a phrase, nasty, brutish, and short.
That's just a plain stupid argument.
What part of growing their own don't you understand?
And if its legal there's not large sums of money to be made by growing it. No gangs or organized criminals. There's nothing in it for them. It isn't black market demanding a premium.
Alcohol has killed FAR more people. So I assume you want to bring back prohibition again... Bringing organized crime with it...
What part of growing their own don't you understand? >>>
"Growing their own" is just a, er, five pointed fig leaf. It's the camel's nose of the cartels--once we let people grow their own, the next question comes, why can't we buy it from the store?
Frankly, I think that when it comes to drug dealers, the Malaysians have precisely the right idea.
And if its legal there's not large sums of money to be made by growing it. No gangs or organized criminals. There's nothing in it for them. It isn't black market demanding a premium.>>
See above. It will be, except today's drug thugs will be tomorrow's pharmaceutical executives, with lobbyists and commercials and newspaper advertisements and publicity men and the whole schmear. No thank you.
Life is a bitch, then ya' die...They could have been high on Drano, it's a choice they made...
So if you just smoke it in the privacy of your own home, you should be safe, right?
You evidently didn't comprehend the phrase "... being able to make bad choices...". Bad means bad not good.
Tell that to terminally ill cancer patients who can't find any other way to relieve the horrible pain caused by a vicious disease that has literally shredded his or her body. The idea that a terminal cancer patient using medical marijuana is somehow a threat to our national security is beyond absurd.>>
Nothing is more despicable than to hear the drug dealers use dying people as excuses to push their cause. They don't give squat about the cancer patient; they only care about their pockets. You have been deceived.
No, because (a) it still drops your IQ about 20 points or more and (b) because it makes drug thugs rich.
If marijuana works so well for pain, how come the guy needed prescriptions for oxycontin and morphine?
And who told them to drive when they shouldn't have? Millions of people smoke pot who don't have accidents. Alcohol is much, much worse yet it's legal. Why?
But they weren't, were they?
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