Charlie Bermant writes in the Port Orchard Independent about the Bruce Olson trial and the attention it’s finally drawing to what’s been happening in Kitsap County. Olson is an authorized medical marijuana patient who was raided by the WestNET drug task force in 2007. Prosecutors claim that Olson and his wife were selling marijuana as well as using it medicinally, but the prosecution’s only witness is a longtime drug addict who they flew up from Oklahoma for the trial who claims he bought marijuana from the Olsons. The Olsons, and others who know them, maintain that they were not growing plants to sell on the black market.
I’ve written about this case a couple of times already, but Bermant’s article illustrates why this case has elicited so much anger from the medical marijuana community:
Both Olson and his wife are medical marijuana patients, but have faced the same distribution charge. The law about acceptable quantities of medical marijuana has been more strictly defined since Pamela Olson’s trial.
Pamela Olson is now serving probation, having pleaded out to avoid jail time. As part of her sentence, she is not using the medical marijuana that she claims is necessary to ease her pain.
The case has become a flashpoint for medical marijuana advocates, or what Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge characterizes as “a well-organized lobby whose purpose is to see the laws changed.”
Hauge is a major focus of the anger in this case. A lot of us who are trying to call more media attention to the Olson trial certainly want more changes to our current drug laws. No argument there. But the problem with what Russ Hauge is doing is that he’s openly trying to undermine the current medical marijuana law in the state of Washington.
The original medical marijuana law that was passed by voters in 1998 contained only an affirmative defense for authorized patients. What that meant was that law enforcement officials were still able to arrest patients, who were then faced with the burden of proving their innocence in court. More progressive prosecutors like King County’s Dan Satterberg recognized that hauling patients into court like that was a waste of both time and taxpayer money as well as being immoral and didn’t do it. But not Russ Hauge.
Even worse, the usual tactic from Hauge’s office has been to arrest patients, then threaten them with long prison terms into taking plea deals. This is what happened to Pamela Olson. And because of Department of Correction rules that don’t recognize medical marijuana, she’s not allowed to take medicine that her doctor has authorized for her while she’s home on probation. A second patient from Kitsap County named Jason Norbut has also found himself in this same situation. According to Norbut, the judge even promised him when he was offered the plea deal that he’d still be able to use his medicine while on probation, but was later told after he was sentenced that it was not allowed by the DOC.
Access to medical marijuana is rarely, if ever, a matter of life and death to patients. For most, it’s a quality of life issue (pain management, stimulating hunger during chemotherapy, etc), but that still doesn’t give any law enforcement official the right to overrule the judgment of doctors. Despite what Russ Hauge may believe he’s doing, what he’s really doing is undermining an existing voter-approved law and violating the human rights of the citizens of Kitsap County.
As medical marijuana supporters have been congregating in Port Orchard to oversee this trial, they’re slowly finding more and more victims of Russ Hauge’s crusade, including a quadriplegic by the name of Glenn Musgrove, who was recently wheeled into court on a gurney. Musgrove has a hearing scheduled for next Friday, March 27th. If anyone is curious about why Kitsap County is spending taxpayer money to prosecute a quadriplegic, the case number is 08-1-00937-6.
Russ Hauge’s ruthless campaign against sick and dying medical marijuana patients is not only cruel in the extreme, it is also an unnecessary waste of scarce taxpayer money.
Many of us here in Kitsap County are tired of public money being wasted so foolishly.
I attended the trial for three days this week and rarely have I seen such a vindictive campaign of innuendo and misinformation as was presented by the prosecution.
Wow…maybe Kitsap County should share some of their money with more cash-strapped counties, so that they can afford to prosecute (and fly in witnesses to) assaults, burglaries, robberies, identity theft, etc.
Kitsap County isn’t the only county where law enforcement and prosecutors regularly hassle medical marijuana patients.
Thurston county has had a number of cases. Though it would seem the prosecutors office has backed off some recently, law enforcement in the area is still engaging in gestapo style raids on patients.
Um, BOTH the husband and wife are “medical marijuana patients?” Sounds fishy to me.
Also, the prosecutor said, “if someone uses the medical marijuana status to justify recreational use or selling for profit, we will prosecute.”
That sounds fair to me.
@4
Um, BOTH the husband and wife are “medical marijuana patients?” Sounds fishy to me.
Why? Marijuana has a wide range of uses. In fact, Bruce Olson has like four separate conditions that qualify him to be a patient. Is it that unusual for an older couple to have a variety of medical issues between them?
Also, the prosecutor said, “if someone uses the medical marijuana status to justify recreational use or selling for profit, we will prosecute.”
The Olsons are medical users who were not selling for profit, so that still doesn’t explain why they’ve been prosecuted as they have been.
In addition, the way that Hauge’s office has been bullying people into pleading guilty is just overzealous nonsense.
Just because the prosecutor says that that’s what’s been going on does not mean that that’s actually what’s going on. It’s very clear from what we know that Hauge is lying to cover up what he’s actually doing, which is to use the power of his office to force patients to stop using their medicine.
Why doesn’t the Attorney General and Governor of Washington get off their collective lazy asses and tell Russ Hauge to either obey state law or the will cut Kitsap County off from all state funding. Hauge obviously wants his DEA Money, let the DEA Support his county.
Whatta mess.
First we have a silly lay banning sale of something as innocuous as
chocolatecarbonated colamarijuana.then
the fans of
chocolatecarbonated colamarijuana get a bright idea. Lets getchocolatecarbonated colamarijuana legalized to treatloss of appetitesleepinessloss of appetite.Then the advocates of the stuff say that if they are allowed to use it it must be OK to sell it. As logical as this may be, the dark side used the same logic to go after the folks who likely were selling something that was harmless anyway.
This seems to me to be a perfect time for Goldy tyo write lyrics for a new musical, styled after Gilbert and Sullivan. We could call it the “Weed Patrol.”
The story would be about an evil hater of marijuana who needs to wipe out the evil weed. His daughter, Lulu, however, has fallen in love with this nice guy, Lew who is an up and coming bishop in the Church of the Holy Pentitate Leaf.
Lew is about to be inducted as an associate semi bishop of the Church, Of course sacramental use marijuana as central to the Church’s ritual ..as well as to their Purim celebrations!
Lulu’s Dad is walking by the Church one day and is approached by Nasty, a self righteous Orthodox Rastafarian who considers the CHPL as a bunch of heretics who have absconded with he idealism of the great prophet Lear E.
and so on ………….