This is a subject matter that I have wanted to blog about for quite some time now. Jury Nullification consists of a jury rendering a not-guilty plea even though there is evidence to show the defendant is guilty of the crime. A jury engaged in jury nullification is not disobeying or breaking any law, or doing anything morally incorrect, they are simply saying they do not wish to apply the law as it is written/interpreted in that specific instance.

Most folks don't really understand what a Jurys job truly is. A jury's true job is not to enforce law or judge another, it is a check in the checks and balances built into the judicial system by our forefathers to ensure that our government is not taking advantage of its citizens. Again, the primary focus of a jury is to ensure that the government is not overstepping their bounds when it comes to their attempts to prosecute a citizen of our great country for something considered law. A more detailed explaination of Jury Nullifcation can be found on Wikipedia, I highly recommend you educate your self outside of wikipedia as well regarding this an all subject matters.

The point I wanted to make with regards to jury nullification and medicinal cannabis is rather simple. While we have a medical cannabis law here in Montana it is vague and contains areas of debate. This "grayness" of the act as some like to refer to it creates confusion for all parties involved. Therefore it is assumed that all parties will stumble and make mistakes during the initial period of growth. When a caregiver stumbles the police are ready and waiting, occassionally those arrests are not valid or have legitimate reasons. In these situations it is up to the jury to determine the validity of the reasons and if applicable find the defendant not-guilty even though there is overwhelming evidence against them. The simple fact is the law is vague and can be interpreted to either side of the line. The simple act of listening and applying compasion on the part of a jury is truly all it takes to discern if the defendant is worthy of the charges being brough upon them.

Know your rights, question authority and ALWAYS think for yourself, grapevine perception isn't all it is cracked up to be!

Google "cannabis jury nullification".

There has been a lot of information going around about the need for legislative changes that would enforce some sort of oversight on caregivers. The quandary is who is best suited to be ones to do the overseeing??...???

Department of Agriculture wants to get involved for caregivers that have nursery size grow operations. They have a lot of leeway as well as they can inspect operations and things along those lines.  I just hope that they understand cannabis is not the same as hay or grain and thus their books may need some overhauling to become current. I also believe they just want to get their piece of the pie via their nursery licenses, everyone wants some green and everyone wants control.

DPHHS is the obvious choice I personally think that they should create a task force that could inspect ops and ensure they are up to code and operating in a safe fashion. As I understand it they already have task force units in the DPHHS that go around doing inspections and quality assurance in day cares. Anyone have the exact details on this please use the comments section to accurately enlighten us all.

The one that should ABSOLUTELY NOT be in charge of overseeing cannabis caregiver operations is the law enforcement agencies. They have screamed for dozens of years that cannabis has NO MEDICAL value, with that said they can NEVER be the ones to control and oversee medical cannabis, they themselves have said that medical and cannabis do not go together as cannabis has no medicinal values. That simple belief would completely hinder their ability to be unbiased and subjective to the operations they would be overseeing. I don't mean that in a manner that they would not overlook certain things, I mean in the fashion that they always be looking for the illegal aspects and not the aspects that truly need overseeing, such as the operations nutrients and pest control applications. The inspecting entity doesn't need to have a "I want to arrest you" attitude, they need to take the approach of helping ensure that the patients are getting quality medicine.

Do we see police officers going into Madison Foods in Ennis and arresting them because of outdated cheese or veggies that are really fuzzy and they're not supposed to be? Don't think so... betcha if we made the grocers have to pay a fine to the police stations that the LEO's would be in there writing tickets left and right. With that said, I ask you, is that want we need for medicinal cannabis???..??

The wheels are churning on how they can "control" cannabis, make sure you contact your local officials and be heard about how the best way to ensure caregivers are providing safe medicine, but not in a fashion that is meant to scare and intimidate.

Well it has been a while since i have had time to sit down and add entries to our blog. A lot of driving for patient deliveries and setting up our physician clinic in Ennis this coming Thursday.

In the time I've been preoccupied a lot as been brewing in the news about cannabis, specifically the report that Tom Berry out of Round Up is going to be introducing legislation in the upcoming session which would only result in more restrictions on patients access to their medicine. There is some talk of limiting a caregiver to 5 patients under the guise of some thought that if you really are caregiving you can only focus on 5 or less patients. Well my rebuttal to that would be that a good caregiver is EXTREMELY hard to find and if a good one is available and has 300 patients, then so be it. The patients DESERVE the right to quality medicine through their caregiver as per the Montana Medical Marijuana Act.

The simple fact is that the MMMA was written and voted for because of the many thousands of patients in Montana that have debilitating conditions that get relief when using cannabis to treat their conditions.

Tom doesn't seem to understand that the law was written in a fashion that it would be self-maintaining in regards to caregivers. Patients are the absolute center of the law, a patient can change their designated caregiver with a simple form that cost nothing to submit. This simple process is the safety that was built into the law to ensure that patients are taken seriously and kept in the forefront of the law and its implementation with out state. Caregivers that are worth their weight in salt understand that a patient is the center point and that the caregiver is simply an assest available to the patient to ensure their easy access to their medicine while following the letter of the law. A quality caregiver is VERY HARD TO FIND, darn near impossible in some areas of our great state, why in the world would we want to limit access to the quality caregivers and force patients into having to designate a subpar caregiver?? It doesn't make logical sense to me. We strive to be the absolute best caregivers in the state of Montana all the while understanding and focusing our efforts on our patients and nothing else. Would punishing the patients on our waiting list because we are a quality caregiver service and have more then 5 patients really be benefiting the patients???..??!!! I highly doubt so.

The simplest analogy I can come up with would be, do we restrict the number of patients the manufacturer of hydrocodone is allowed to dispense their medicine too?...??..??? ABSOLUTELY NOT, it is made available in many locations and very easy to obtain. Why would someone be so callus as to introduce changes to the law that would limit their access to their medicine? It doesn't make sense if they are in fact understanding of the fact that cannabis is a viable treatment for many hundreds, if not thousands of ailments common to humans. Tom Berry received a brief but poignant email from me today stating something similar to this blog posting, I hope he will really take the time to reconsider his view on medicinal cannabis and its accessibility to the patients that need it before introducing legislation that is simply anti-cannabis (like his previous bills he has attempted to and/or submitted).

I call to action all Montanans and citizens of our great country that believe law is what We the people say it is, period and not something to be construed and twisted by ideologic elected officials. Remember Tom, you're only where you are to be a puppet for the constituents that put you into that office so you had better go out and listen to them, they want accessible cannabis under the law. Do not make it more difficult for them to obtain from a reliable, dedicated caregiver.