Interesting- Missouris Right to Farm Law and cannabis

\tLawyers use 'Right to Farm' amendment to defend cultivation of marijuana<div>Tuesday, May 5, 2015 | 7:22 p.m. CDT; updated 8:21 p.m. CDT, Tuesday, May 5, 2015
BY Jack Suntrup
 
COLUMBIA - Two Missouri attorneys are using the so-called "Right to Farm" amendment to defend their clients against charges for growing marijuana.
 
Justin Carver, a public defender who works in Jefferson City, represents Lisa Loesch, who was charged in 2013 with growing marijuana in her Jefferson City house. After Carver was assigned the case in March, he read over the text of Missouri's newly passed constitutional amendment known as "Right to Farm."
 
The amendment to the Missouri constitution reads in part that "the right of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state."
 
"The language of 'Right to Farm' is so very broad that it's startling," Carver said. "I just started thinking about it, and it just dawned on me that if you read this language, it sounds like growing marijuana is permitted."
 
The amendment was put on the ballot by the Republican-controlled state legislature. It was approved by voters statewide in August by 2,375 votes out of almost 1 million ballots cast, and survived a recount.
 
Carver filed a motion last week in Cole County Circuit Court arguing, in part, that even though growing pot is illegal under Missouri law, those statutes are unconstitutional because they violate Amendment 1.
 
Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson did not return calls seeking comment. Circuit Judge Daniel Green presides over the case.
 
Columbia-based attorney Dan Viets plans to make a similar argument on behalf of two of his clients.
"Any state statute that prohibits cultivation of marijuana was automatically rendered invalid by the passage of Right to Farm," Viets said.
 
Growing pot is illegal under federal law, but Viets said that his and Carver's clients are charged under state laws against marijuana cultivation, so it doesn't matter.
 
"Theoretically, a federal prosecutor could still pursue federal charges, but not a state prosecutor and not under state law," Viets said.
 
Viets represents Gene and Dolores Halbin, who are being prosecuted in Bates County, in western Missouri, for knowingly producing more than 5 grams of marijuana, according to court documents.
 
Viets said the couple is accused of having a small growing operation for personal use in their basement. He said that Gene Halbin used marijuana to treat a painful form of glaucoma that has blinded him in one eye. Because of being charged, Viets said, Dolores Halbin lost her job as a nurse.
 
"They're great people, they're nice people, and they don't deserve to be put through this prosecution," Viets said.
 
While Viets is the chairman of Show-Me Cannabis and has advocated for changes in Missouri's pot laws for decades, Carver said he doesn't have an agenda.
 
"If there's an argument that's meritorious, I've got to raise it and let the chips fall where they may," he said.
 
Rep. Bill Reiboldt, R-Neosho and one of the primary sponsors of Amendment 1, said arguments that the amendment legalizes growing marijuana are "ridiculous." He said that "if growing marijuana is illegal under state and federal law, then it's illegal."
 
Reiboldt said he resents people trying to fashion legal arguments away from the law's true intent, which was to add a hurdle for animal rights activists who may try to enact costly regulations.
 
"It's a sad day when people try to make this amendment about something that it's not," Reiboldt said.
Anthony DeWitt, who represents farmers opposed to the amendment, made oral arguments before the Missouri Supreme Court in February that the wording of the ballot language was unclear and misled voters.
 
In a phone interview, DeWitt called the idea that people may have the constitutional right to grow marijuana "very interesting."
 
"It's sort of the law of unintended consequences," DeWitt said. "The state of Missouri might've passed agricultural production of marijuana for personal use - a grave surprise for people who proposed this measure."
 
Estil Fretwell, spokesman for the Missouri Farm Bureau, which was one of the main backers of Amendment 1, said that "nothing in Amendment 1 would make legal anything that is illegal."
Fretwell wouldn't comment on the validity of Viet's or Carver's legal case.
 
Anders Walker, a constitutional law professor at St. Louis University, said courts probably won't allow marijuana cultivation.
 
"I don't think it's likely, but it's certainly possible," he said.
 
The problem for the defense attorneys might lie in the first sentence of the amendment: "That agriculture which provides food, energy, health benefits and security is the foundation and stabilizing force of Missouri's economy."
 
Walker said that although marijuana could be said to provide "health benefits," a lawyer probably couldn't persuade a judge that it provides food, energy or security.
 
That's not to say a judge couldn't allow farming of marijuana based on health benefits, he said.
Mike Wolff, former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and current dean of the St. Louis University School of Law, said the situation is murky.
 
"The people who wrote this weren't being very careful," he said.
 
Wolff shared the same concerns about the amendment's first sentence, and said the real question was whether the vague second sentence that establishes the "rights of farmers and ranchers" was dependent on the first, which said that agriculture provides "food, energy, health benefits and security."
 
The second sentence reads in part that "the rights of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state."
 
Wolff's second question was to what extent the word "practices" in the second sentence modified the meaning of both farming and ranching.
 
"Why isn't growing marijuana a form of farming?" Wolff said. "I don't think it's a farming 'practice,' but does 'practice' modify both farming and ranching, or just ranching?"
 
In court, Wolff said, a judge might examine arguments based only on the wording of the amendment. A judge could also consider lawmakers' intent, which had nothing to do with marijuana, he said.
 
Wolff said part of him would be inclined to look at the language as written, regardless of the intent.
 
"When you say, 'Oh, well, they probably didn't mean that,' then you're saying that legislators can write things as sloppy as they want, and the courts will try to fix it for them," Wolff said. "The courts shouldn't try to fix things for them."
 
He wouldn't predict what the courts may decide, but, he said, "It's a pretty creative argument, don't you think?"
 
*****
 
 
 
 


</div>Apparently, all 50 states have some form of a "Right to Farm" law (Wikipedia) so this could possibly set a major legal precedent on cultivation!
 
Could some of our Missouri blades keep an eye on this?     I have my hands full just keeping up with the medical end of things, and I'm not in Missouri, so the results of the ruling could slip by me all too easily. (I'm good, but I'm not SuperWoman!    )
 
 
Granny

 

It's even" better" than that, Galaxy! Our Federal Government runs a medical marijuana program, and has done so since the late 1970s!    Every single month, for decades, our government has mailed out shiny metal tins filled with 300 "marijuana cigarettes" to a very few American citizens.
 

 
 
If any of you blades are having a bit of trouble believing all this, you can read all about it is these-
 
4 Americans get medical pot from the feds    (news – 2014)    
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-americans-get-medical-pot-from-the-feds/
 
Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program    (full - 2002)        
http://www.maps.org/mmj/russo2002.pdf
 
Yet our government continues to deny that cannabis has any medical value, and will put us in federal prison if we DARE to do EXACTLY what our government does- grow, "manufacture" and distribute cannabis!
 
 
 
"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government, but illegal for the citizenry." - attributed to Thomas Jefferson     
 
 
 
 
Granny
 
 
PS- Our government grows schwag! I met one of the last survivors of the program and she confirmed it- ANYTHING on the street is better than the "government issue" pot!

 

Just to show you guys how lousy the pot they give these medical patients-
 
"NIDA had available cannabis cigarettes of 1.8%, 2.8%, 3.0%, and 3.4% THC.....Finally, test subjects in their study of NIDA canabis reported (pp. 66-67), “that the marijuana is inferior in sensory qualities (taste, harshness) than the marijuana that they smoke outside the laboratory. Some have stated that it was the worst marijuana they had ever sampled, or that it tasted ‘chemically treated.' All the study patients criticize the paper employed to roll the cannabis cigarettes as harsh, and tasting poorly. NIDA cannabis cigarettes resemble Pall Mall®brand tobacco cigarettes without the logo.....A close inspection of the contents of NIDA-supplied cannabis cigarettes reveals them to be a crude mixture of leaf with abundant stem and seed components (Figures 5-6). The odor is green and herbal in character. The resultant smoke is thick, acrid, and pervasive." 
 
Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program    (full - 2002)        
http://www.maps.org/mmj/russo2002.pdf

 
 
I have sometimes wondered if they deliberately give them the worst quality that they can possibly manufacture. From what I understand, the way they manufacture their pot is to cut down plants (males and females), dry them, and chop them up (stems, seeds leaves and buds- everything but the main trunk). Then they subject the chopped herb to a solvent to remove the cannabinoids, and dry the stripped plant material. The solvent is then sprayed back onto the dry plant material at a set rate to obtain the prescribed 1.8%, 2.8%, 3.0%, or 3.4%  of THC that each person receives.
 
The "reconstituted" cannabis is then re-dried and rolled- the chopped stems, seeds, leaves and buds, saturated with not only the cannabinoids, but also all of the oil from the seeds. (Think of the odor of "vegetable oil on a stove burner"  , and the seeds are about 1/3 oil, and there are a lot of seeds!)  Click the link and check out page 50 for photos! I got way better-looking weed than that for $10 an ounce in 1967, and it was most all "Mex Brick weed" back then!
 
A simple thing like growing a plant, drying it and rolling it in a cigarette , and our government manages to screw it up BIG TIME!
 
I hope all of you are registered to vote! We need to stop this insanity! LEGALIZE IN 2016!
 
 
 
 
Granny