Marijuana Case Dismissed

Saturday, December 18, 2004

by Molly Borgstrom
Baraboo News Republic

BARABOO, WI - Earlier this week a Sauk County judge threw out a case against a woman charged with marijuana possession because she had an out-of-state prescription for the drug.

"I've been doing this for 17 years and this is the first such prescription I've seen," said Assistant District Attorney Kevin Calkins, who prosecuted the case.

Medical marijuana is illegal in Wisconsin, but statutes allow possession where the patient has a valid prescription from a practitioner licensed to prescribe the drug. Calkins said the defendant in this case, Cheryl A. Lam, 53, of Sun Prairie, showed proof of her prescription in court and Judge James Evenson dismissed the case.

Calkins said he doubted whether the ruling, although unusual, would affect future court cases. Legal precedent cannot be established at the circuit court level, and his office has no plans to appeal and move the case up in the courts, Calkins said.

Medical marijuana advocates place more importance on the ruling, said Gary Storck, a spokesperson for the Madison chapters of Is My Medicine Legal YET? and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"I'm very excited by it," Storck said. "I think any time that a judge rules that a person has the right to use their medicine in the state of Wisconsin, it's significant."

According to court documents filed by her attorney, Lam had a medical card signed by a California doctor licensed to prescribe marijuana as medicine. California and 10 other states have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana.

Authorities at Devil's Lake State Park arrested Lam July 31, according to court documents, after they responded to a fight at her camp site between her and her three sons. One of the sons told the officer he had thrown a marijuana pipe into the woods, so another officer with a drug-sniffing dog was dispatched to the scene.

After consulting with the officer, Lam turned over two plastic bags of marijuana and a pipe. Lam had 3 grams in her possession.

Lam started using medical marijuana after she was bit by a Brown Recluse spider in 1995, according to documents her lawyer filed. She had lesions over her entire body and after trips to several specialists still was not healed. At one point 85 percent of her flesh had been eaten away, her lawyer claimed in the documents.

A Chinese medicine practitioner treated Lam with herbs, including cannabis, and in 2000 she became a patient of California doctor Tod H. Mikuriya, according to the documents. He prescribed her medical marijuana.

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A hotbed of cannabis activism, Washington State is home to many organizations working to bring about rational drug policy. Here are some things to get involved with:

Cannabis Defense Coalition has been very active lately. They focus on courtroom observation and medical marijuana activism.

The ACLU-WA Drug Policy Project created the Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation campaign, among other things.

Initiative 75, passed in 2003, deprioritized marijuana law enforcement in Seattle. A final report (2mb pdf) on the law was produced by the city.

The November Coalition, based in Colville, is a national reform group and works with prisoners and families.

SpoCannabis is a medical marijuana activist group in Spokane.

King Co. Bar Association Drug Policy Project has done amazing work educating the "suits" about the failure of our prohibition model of drug policy, and the need for a regulatory model of drug policy.

Seattle Hempfest is the third weekend in August on Seattle's waterfront.

Olympia Hempfest is a week after Seattle's big bash.