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Medical Marijuana Patient Sues U.S.: Denied Gun Ownership
By "Cannabis Karri"
The Second Amendment Rights of medical marijuana patients have come into focus lately. When Oregonian Cynthia Willis was denied a renewal for her concealed weapons permit three years ago, the medical marijuana community took notice. That case was decided in Ms. Willis’s favor, but the local sheriff , Mike Winter, wants to take it to the Supreme Court.
In September, the United States Justice Department sent letters to all federally licensed gun dealers notifying them they could not sell guns or ammunition to medical marijuana card holders. The Justice Department is using the same argument Sheriff Winter used in Willis’s case — that the Gun Control act of 1968 forbids anyone who uses a controlled substance from having a firearm.
Now, a medical technician from Nevada is suing the US government for unconstitutionally denying her her Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, after she was not allowed to buy a gun for the purpose of self-defense.
The Medical tech and professional caregiver, who holds a master’s degree and is working towards medical school to become an osteopath goes as S. Rowen Wilson in the court documents filed last week. Wilson tried to buy a Smith and Wesson .357 from a gun dealer this month, but he told her he was prohibited from selling her a firearm, or even any ammunition, because she had a medical marijuana card.
She had left the question on the gun application that asks if you are an unlawful user of, or addicted to marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance, blank, but the dealer said he had personal knowledge that Ms. Wilson was a card holder.
He said he had recently received a notice from the ATF that said he was forbidden from selling firearms to medical marijuana card holders. Wilson says a blanket ban violates the constitutional rights of thousands of responsible, law-biding American citizens. In her lawsuit, She accuses Eric Holder, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, B. Todd Jones and Aurthur Herbert, the director and assistant director of that bureau, and the United States Government of prohibiting a certain class of citizens from exercising their Constitutional Rights by enacting policies with the intent of denying the 2nd Amendment rights of persons who have registered to use medical marijuana pursuant to and in accordance with state law.
Wilson herself turned to medical marijuana for severe nausea and cachexia after meeting with dozens of patients in her profession that told her of their positive experience with medical marijuana. She is suing the Governement for violating her rights under the 2nd and the 5th Amendments and is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. This is a case we will be closely monitoring as it makes its way through the courts.
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Comments
Due to the nefarious effects
Due to the nefarious effects of Prohibition we have now become totally subordinate to a corporatized, despotic government with a heavily armed and corrupt, militarized police force whose often deadly intrusions into our homes and lives are condoned by an equally corrupt and spineless Judiciary who are intentionally protecting transnational corporate Institutions over individual Citizens.
Colombia, Peru, Mexico or Afghanistan with their coca leaves, marijuana buds or poppy sap are not igniting temptation in the minds of our weak, innocent citizens. These countries are duly responding to the enormous demand that comes from within our own borders. Invading or destroying these countries, thus creating more hate, violence, instability, injustice and corruption, will not fix our problem. We need to collectively admit that we are sick. -- Prohibition is neither a sane nor a safe approach; left unabated, its puritanical flames will surely engulf every last one of us!
The illegal drug trade is now estimated to be somewhere in the region of $400 billion a year ( equal to the defense budget ). This "former land of the free" arrests 1.5 million of it's citizens a year for drug law violations, half for marijuana alone, The majority of the 2.2 million inmates in the USA are incarcerated because of this insane drug war (Prohibition 2) at a staggering cost to all taxpayers and trauma to their families.
Prisons have been filled to capacity. Violent criminals, murderers, rapists and child molesters are released early to create space for these so called drug offenders. Half of court trial time and also a huge chunk of police officers time is pointlessly wasted. Enormous untaxed profits from illegal drugs fund multi-national criminal empires which bribe law enforcement authorities and spread corruption faster than a raging bush fire. These laws take violent criminals and turn them into multi-billionaires whilst corrupting even entire countries such as Columbia, Panama, Mexico and Afghanistan. The extreme violence on and south of the border is drug gangs fighting for turf in this lucrative business. The drug laws are also funding the Taliban whose illegal opium profits allow it to buy weapons and pay it's fighters more than $300 a month, compared with the $14 paid to an Afghan policemen.
When governments prohibit drugs they effectively and knowingly hand a monopoly on their sale to dangerous criminals and terrorists. Without a legal framework in which to operate, these black-market entities can always be expected to settle their disputes violently, while terrorizing many peaceful and innocent citizens in the process. Were the users of alcohol to blame for the St Valentines massacre in the US in 1929? Of course not! It is just as naive to assume that one can compel all the users of Marijuana or Cocaine to simply quit, as it is to assume that all the users of Alcohol should have stopped drinking after the introduction of alcohol prohibition in 1919. Nobody can be expected to obey bad laws, like ones that infringe on logic as well as the fundamental right to decide on what medicine or poison an individual adult may, or may not, ingest. The corruption, violence and death ultimately arising from such bad public policy should always rest squarely on the shoulders of those ignorant imbeciles who are responsible for implementing and supporting such foolishness.
The definition of insanity is great folly, madness, extreme senselessness, lunacy. Prohibition can be described as being all of the above and may therefor, along with all it's supporters, be deemed insane.
Each day you remain silent, you help to destroy the Constitution, fill the prisons with our children, and empower terrorists and criminals worldwide while wasting hundreds of billions of your own tax dollars. Prohibition bears many strong and startling similarities to Torquemada’s inquisition, it’s supporters are servants of tyranny and hate who’s sole purpose is to make the rest of us suffer their putrid legacy of incalculable waste and destruction.
Protect our Children; Legalize, Regulate & Tax!