Please post and share this information as widely and promptly as possible. If you would like me to speak to any group of concerned patients, please e-mail me and I will try to accommodate you. This information was prepared by Letitia Pepper, a licensed California attorney who is the volunteer Director of Legal and Legislative Analysis for Crusaders for Patients' Rights, a true patient education and advocacy nonprofit for real medical marijuana patients, not a front for people intent on creating a for-profit cannabis industry at the expense of patients' Compassionate Use Act (CUA) rights. The first step any and all patients can do is to send your city council, or county board of supervisors, this notice, as a resident of whatever place you live. If you want, you can send it in from "Anonymous," but I suggest that you keep a copy and proof of mailing it, e.g., make a copy of the addressed, stamped envelope stapled to a copy of this notice with a note of the date of mailing. NOTICE OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF "This local ordinance to restrict the cultivation and possession of medical marijuana, adopted pursuant to the State's Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA) will prevent me, [add, as necessary, my spouse, my parent(s), my child (or children), my housemate(s)] who is/are medical marijuana patient(s), from cultivating and possessing enough marijuana for my/our personal medicinal uses. It, and the MMRSA on which it is based, thus violates California's applicable and controlling law, the Compassionate Use Act (CUA). "The California Supreme Court, in People v. Kelly (2008) 47 Cal.4th 1008, 1043, 1049, held that medical marijuana patients have the CUA-given right to cultivate and possess as much marijuana as they need for their personal medicinal uses, and that any law that attempts to impair or burden such rights is unconstitutional under California Constitution Article II, Section 10 subdivision (c).) Kelly did not state that patients only have an affirmative defense from prosecution, because a defendant cannot have an affirmative defense to a crime without a foundational right to engage in an act that, without such right, would be a crime, but with such right is not a crime at all. Notably, People v. Kelly was decided the last time the State Legislature adopted legislation that attempted to limit the amount of marijuana that a patient could lawfully grow or possess, when it adopted the Medical Marijuana Program Act (the MMP) which added Health & Safety Code section 11362.77's plant and flower limits to the CUA. The California Supreme Court held that "By extending the reach of section 11362.77's quantity limitations beyond those persons who voluntarily register under the MMP and obtain an identification card that provides protection against arrest—and by additionally restricting the rights of all "qualified patients" and "primary caregivers" who fall under the CUA—the challenged language of section 11362.77 effectuates a change in the CUA that takes away from rights granted by the initiative statute." (47Cal.4th at p. 1043, emphasis added.) The Court reiterated the fact that the CUA gives patients the right to possess and cultivate as much medical marijuana as they need for personal medicinal use regardless of any state legislation to the contrary: "Whether or not a person entitled to register under the MMP elects to do so, that individual, so long as he or she meets the definition of a patient or primary caregiver under the CUA, retains all the rights afforded by the CUA[, including the right to . . .possess[] or cultivate[] an amount of marijuana reasonably related to meet his or her current medical needs." (Id., at p. 1048, emphasis added, citation omitted.) The People v. Kelly Court also explained that this effort to adopt laws that impair Cua-given rights are unconstitutional because it "constitutes an amendment of the CUA in violation of California Constitution, article II, section 10, subdivision (c)." (Id., at p. 1042.) As the Kelly court noted, "[T]he CUA—unlike many other initiative measures in recent decades—did not grant the Legislature authority to amend." (47 Cal.4th, supra, at p. 1042, footnote omitted.) And because the Legislature's efforts, via the MMRSA, just like with the MMP, are a "scheme" that "the Legislature adopted . . . on its own, without seeking ratification by the electorate," and that impose more burdens on medical marijuana patients than allowed under the CUA, they are unconstitutional. (Id. at p. 1043.) This is why the Medical Marijuana Regulation & Safety Act (MMRSA), and all the local laws adopted pursuant to it, which purport to limit what patient can grow, and to burden such right by requiring patients to get licenses, permits, identification cards and jump through other such hoops, are unconstitutional, illegal efforts to impair and burden the constitutionally-protected rights given to patients by the People of the State of California when they adopted the CUA. Furthermore, neither the State of California nor any of its political subdivisions, e,g,, the counties and cities, may require any patient to obtain a license, permit, or government-issued ID card as a condition of cultivation, possession or transportation. First, possession or cultivation of even medical marijuana is still illegal under federal law, so requiring a person to go on record, in any way, as possessing or cultivating it unconstitutionally violates such person's Fifth Amendment Right against self-incrimination. (Leary v. United States (1969) 395 U.S. 6, 12-13.) Second, the CUA was intended to make access to medical marijuana safe and affordable. Requiring patients to obtain such permits, licenses and cards makes access less affordable, and thus not only violates the restriction on "burdening" CUA-given rights, but also violates the intent of the CUA. The cases cited by cities and counties in justification of adopting these unlawful ordinances, which were cobbled together by the self-serving League of Cities and the California Chiefs of Police, do not make these ordinances lawful. For example, the case of City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health & Wellness Center (2013) 56 Cal.4th 729 reached its limited result -- to allow cities and counties to ban storefront dispensing collectives dispensaries - by ignoring applicable law and facts. It failed to mention, e.g., that the State Legislature had directed the Attorney General to adopt statewide regulations to carry out the purposes of the CUA, and that the Attorney General had done so, the 2008 Attorney General Guidelines for the Safety and Nondiversion of Medical Marijuana. It also failed to discuss the facts, e.g., that (1) if the State itself could not have impaired patients' access to medical marijuana, then neither could its political subdivisions, the cities and counties, do so, and (2) the purpose of government's police power is to regulate land uses to prevent nuisances. Any activity authorized by the People of California, such as the personal cultivation of marijuana for personal medicinal needs, cannot be deemed a "per se nuisance" and banned as such. "More to the point, the Inland Empire Patients Health & Wellness Center case did not address the issue of personal cultivation. "The case of Maral v. City of Live Oak (2013) 221 Cal.App.4th 975, is only a Court of Appeal decision, and does not control over contrary California Supreme Court opinions. Thus, Maral, which held that patients have no "right" to cultivate medical marijuana, and relied on another Court of Appeal opinion to state that "The CUA creates only a limited defense to certain crimes, 'not a constitutional right to obtain marijuana,' " citing People v. Urziceanu (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th747 , 774. But Maral did not cite,let alone attempt to discuss, People v. KELLY, which held that patients do have a constitutionally-protected right to cultivate. "I therefore will not obtain a license, a permit, a medical marijuana ID card issued by anyone, or do anything more than what the CUA requires, to wit, I will obtain a doctor's recommendation that medical marijuana might help my serious medical problem. If, in the future, I am cited for violating this unlawful and unconstitutional ordinance or the MMRSA, I, like all medical marijuana patients, will raise all these issues, and all such others as also may be applicable, in my defense and, if I so decide, in a countersuit against the government entity that is unconstitutionally violating my constitutionally-protected, CUA-given rights." .
MCLEEP Medical Cannabis Law Enforcement Education Program
MCLEEP EMERGENCY CARE FUND
MCLEEP.ORG Founder
J. Nayer Hardin Volunteer Coordinator
Protect Yourself, Prevent Patient Fraud
In California it is simple. See a doctor in person to get a medical marijuana recommendation letter.
Did you see a doctor over skype, a computer, notepad device, or TV screen using telemedicine?
(not in person first time?)
If you answered YES to the above question you may have a fraudulent letter claim.
Did you receive a “good faith” examination by a licensed professional?
If you answered NO to the above question you may have a fraudulent letter claim. Some clinics have secretaries doing the jobs of nurses and medical assistants. It may seem strange, but it’s not. The stranger evaluation…
Caregivers, Does the clinic let you speak to a doctor?
Is there a doctor onsite? Is the clinic owned by a doctor? Did you pay extra for a growers permit or exemption letter?
Was there anything strange about your clinic visit?
It has come to our attention and concern that doctors identities are being stolen, and being scammed by clinic owners.
We want to help patients until doctors become compliant.
There over 100,000 fraudulent letters issued every year, most patients are affraid to say they have been scammed by a marijuana doctor? Most patients don’t know or understand the difference?
For more information you can visit the California medical board website or contact MCLEEP.ORG at 925-354-9411 if you would like to be an anonymous claim member over 160 have joined. GET a FREE referral to an in person doctor in your area.
FREE letter review and patient verification.
MCLEEP LETTER DRIVE: A letter is like 1000 calls.
EVERY LETTER IS LIKE 1000 CALLS!
RE: The MCLEEP Governors & Presidents letter drive:
We are delivering a packet of letters to the Governor of CA and The President of the united states on a wide range of medical marijuana patients issues:
Send us your Governors and Presidents letters!
Let’s go we have limited time.
Contact us for a sample letter to draft your personalized letter directing your concerns. If you need any help email us at using the websites email link.
info (at) mcleep.org
you can print, sign and scan letters and email them to us to help also.
we can print and send the letters in our package, postage paid!
We expanded this campaign to the President.
He needs to know the same things as our Governor!
We are asking for very personalized letters from, patients, cultivators, caregivers or collectives who have failed or suffered from the negligence of courts and law enforcement of the principles and purposes of Proposition 215, and it’s furtherance in SB420. The governor is about to sign a package of 3 bills: AB 243, AB 266, AB 643.
We think your letters and concerns matter:
Here is a sample Letter From Dr. Marion Fry, It means so much more to personalize than use a template.
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Governor Brown,
I spoke to your staff on Friday the 25th of September. I was concerned because I felt that they did not take me seriously.
I am a medical cannabis patient who survived breast cancer, I am also a physician. I am deeply concerned about the legislation that you have on your desk. Regulation is required for the industry of business regarding cannabis sales and distribution. However the legislation you have before you , unnecessarily restricts and regulates physicians as well as takes away the rights of patients. In 1996 the California people voted to create a law called the compassionate use act or proposition 215. This law states that it is a right of sick and dying patients to have safe and affordable access to the alternative medicine of cannabis. It also states that no physician shall be sanctioned or prosecuted for having recommended cannabis to a patient.
This law came into existence by the will of the people to meet the needs of the people. The legislation , Senate bill 266 other related bills are going against the needs and will of sick Californians. Specific modifications to the existing bill could make it much more acceptable to the patients it was intended to protect. Small groups of patients who provide medicine for each other should be called care providers not caregivers, this would allow them to work together to provide safe and affordable medicine for each others. Individual patient should be allowed to grow share and receive benefit from their medicine in a non commercial level. Patients must be able to transport and use their medicine wherever and whenever they need it in California. Proposition 215 made the use of cannabis a right not a privilege.
In addition doctors should be regulated through the appropriate medical administrative procedures. Singling out cannabis doctors as separate from other medical practices is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. No one group of people should be singled out for any reason other than unlawful behavior. The issues that the legislature appears to have regarding physicians will be resolved when cannabis is made recreational next year.
Thank you very much for your interest in the sick and dying Californians and your desire to keep them safe as they use a medicine that is life saving. The rights of Californians to have a healthy safe environment and access to quality medicine , must always come before economic and political motivations. Please ensure that sick and dying Californians have safe and affordable access to cannabis.
Sincerely Marion Fry MD
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