Ashcroft Runs Roughshod Over Oregon's Voters Again

By Leland R. Berger -Oregon Live

May 30, 2002

Although "if you're gonna steal, steal big" may be the guiding mantra for some, in the U.S. Justice Department's war on medical marijuana patients, size doesn't matter.

Even though the U.S. attorney for Oregon generally doesn't prosecute cultivation cases involving fewer than 1,000 plants, the government successfully stole a patient's 2.5 grams of medical marijuana from the Portland Police Bureau, in broad daylight.

Why should the government care about whether Portland police have such a paltry quantity of marijuana? Don't the police keep all controlled substances they seize? What was so special about this case?

What was special was that Portland police, over their objections, had been ordered to return this marijuana to the heart patient from whom they had taken it a month after Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act took effect in 1999. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Robert Redding's order followed the act: Once a determination is made by the district attorney or a judge that the marijuana was in possession of a patient covered under the act, as was the case here, the seized drug must be returned.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here