Posted on 05/23/2002 3:11:53 PM PDT by Glutton
Heart patient Samuel Nim Kama thought he'd won the battle to make Portland officials hand over the 2.5 grams of marijuana they took from him in 1999.
Having proved that he was entitled to the drug under Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act -- and having prevailed twice in state court over the city's objections -- Kama was ready to claim his property this month from a police evidence room where it's sat for three years.
But in the end, it appears neither Kama, 52, nor the city will get to keep the tin of stale pot denoted by Portland Police Property Receipt No. 680678.
The federal government does.
A federal magistrate on Wednesday authorized the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to serve a warrant for the drug on the Portland Police Bureau. Pending a hearing before a state judge today, DEA agents plan to seize the drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
"You're talking about federal law," said Rogene Waite, a DEA spokeswoman, "which is clearly, according to the U.S. Constitution, supreme."
Kama's case is rare; his 2.5 grams were seized when the medical marijuana law was just a month old. Oregon now issues ID cards so that the state's roughly 2,500 registered medical marijuana users can avoid such conflicts with police. But the law's authors called the DEA's move -- which follows a recent crackdown on marijuana buyers' clubs in California -- a bizarre example of the Bush administration's tough new stance in states that allow marijuana as medicine.
"Doesn't the federal government have better things to do?" asked Richard Bayer, chief petitioner of the Medical Marijuana Act and a Washington County physician. He likened smoking 2.5 grams of 3-year-old buds, enough for about two cigarettes, to smoking "lawn clippings after it didn't rain for six weeks."
Richard White, Kama's attorney, said he was still weighing his options.
The city attorney's office -- in the odd position of arguing Wednesday that it was obligated to give the marijuana to Kama and not the DEA -- did not return phone calls for comment.
Kama lost his marijuana Jan. 28, 1999.
Police who were at the home of a Southeast Portland couple found a 71-plant marijuana crop, manufacturing equipment, two pounds of frozen marijuana, a scale and boxes of plastic bags. Kama drove up during the search and voluntarily gave police the small tin of marijuana he was carrying.
The couple pleaded guilty to drug offenses. Kama said he was entitled to his marijuana under state law.
The law, approved by voters in November 1998, allows people with conditions such as AIDS or cancer to possess small quantities of marijuana for treating symptoms such as pain and nausea. They must obtain a doctor's note and fill out an application with the state Health Division.
Kama, who suffered a heart attack and has a defibrillator in his chest, argued successfully that he needed marijuana to settle nausea that makes it hard for him to swallow food and medicine. He was never prosecuted.
But the police, saying officers would be guilty of delivery of a controlled substance, balked at returning the marijuana.
When Multnomah County Circuit Judge Robert Redding ordered police to return Kama's marijuana, the City Council voted to take the decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals.
When the court upheld Redding's decision, the city attorney's office went to the Oregon Supreme Court, which decided May 8 not to consider the appeal. Kama's attorney began talking to the city about how to retrieve the marijuana.
That's when the DEA stepped in.
On May 16, Special Agent Jeffrey R. Wallenstrom, a 12-year veteran who has examined 20 indoor marijuana grows, signed a seven-page affidavit asking U.S. Magistrate Donald C. Ashmanskas for a warrant to seize the pot from police custody.
Ashmanskas complied, but he gave the city until today to discuss the issue further with Redding, the state judge who originally ruled Kama should get his marijuana back. If the DEA serves the warrant after that, the bureau will have to comply, said Lt. Frank Romanaggi of the drug and vice division.
Sgt. Brian Schmautz, a Portland police spokesman who also happened to be the officer who originally took Kama's drugs away, said the bureau had sought the DEA's advice earlier to clarify possible conflicts with federal law.
Since marijuana loses its potency at room temperature, Schmautz said Kama's pot is probably long past its prime. But that's not the issue.
"The federal law does not distinguish between really good-looking bud or really crappy-looking bud," Schmautz said. "It says you can't distribute a controlled substance." You can reach Steve Suo at 503-221-8288 or e-mail at stevesuo@news.oregonian.com
Panama Red!!
I thought the constitution was written to limit what the federal government can do.
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Seems to me that whether or not the actual owner of the weed gets it back or not, it is still up to the individual state to decide.
Of course Oregon already decided that medical marijuana should be legal, so why are the feds involved in the first place.
It's 2.5 grams , for cryin' out loud. What's that, about 25 bucks' worth?
By the way, I work at the Department of Redundancy Department.
A smokable shoe?
Can someone please send this guy some weed? LOL
These a$$holes need to get a damn life, all of them. The plantiffs, defendents, the lawyers, the judges, Oregon and the DEA. They ALL need to get a freaking life for God's sake.
I think we have way too much time in this country to be worried about such st0opit-assed things.
The guy's lucky they didn't protect him from the evils of weed by sending a 20-man gestapo squad to his house & shooting him about 50 times (like they've been known to do).
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