Drug convict wants to use medical pot
Judith Brandon hoped a judge would let her smoke marijuana while she awaits trial for allegedly selling the drug to a confidential informant.
Instead, she was wheeled back to the Spokane County Jail on Thursday.
Brandon, 59, who uses a wheelchair and has multiple sclerosis, degenerative arthritis and heart and lung ailments, among other medical conditions, doesn’t claim to be a poster child for the medical marijuana debate.
Brandon has had numerous convictions for possessing and selling drugs and said she started using heroin at age 17. Brandon said she has no memory of selling marijuana to a confidential informant in June 2001.
Six years ago, Washington voters approved a medical marijuana initiative. Yet many issues surrounding medical marijuana use remain murky. There’s still no agreement on what constitutes the allowed 60-day supply of the drug. Users have no way of legally buying it.
Brandon believed she should be allowed to smoke marijuana while she awaits trial.
“I know my background doesn’t look good,” Brandon said at a recent interview at her Spokane Valley apartment. “Where does the law stand for me?”
Several judges instructed Brandon not to use marijuana while she awaits trial on the drug sale charges. She was first hauled off to jail last week after court-ordered drug tests came back positive for marijuana. Brandon feels the tests were flawed, but admitted in court that she smoked pot on one occasion to ease her pain. She felt that a doctor’s signature on a medical marijuana authorization form gave her the right to smoke marijuana.
“Jail is not a nice place,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Stevens said in court Thursday. “Sometimes jail is necessary for people who have shown nothing but contempt for court orders.”
Judge Michael Price agreed. He didn’t buy Brandon’s claim that marijuana was a medical necessity. Brandon is sick but has other medications she could take to ease her pain, Price said at a hearing Thursday.
Brandon disagrees, saying other medication makes her too sick and marijuana is the only thing that has worked for her.
Her doctor, Timothy Gardner, testified that he spent a long time talking to Brandon about her problems. He suggested other treatments. But Brandon told him she didn’t think they would work, Gardner said Thursday.
“My own preference was for her to try other things. But this offered her more than nothing,” Gardner said.
Patrick Stiley, a well-known Spokane defense attorney whose law firm of Stiley, Madel & Cikutovich has defended several medical marijuana clients, said he never thought the marijuana issue would remain murky for as long as it has.
The initiative states that some patients with terminal or debilitating illnesses could benefit from marijuana, but doesn’t allow for its legal purchase. It says a “primary caregiver” may provide the marijuana, but doesn’t specify how the caregiver could legally obtain it. The bill also doesn’t allow for what Brandon is being accused of – selling marijuana. It also prohibits using it in public.
There is no consistency in the decisions made by judges around the state, Stiley said.
The state Legislature has tried numerous times to introduce legislation that could clarify the issue, but it has gotten nowhere. Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a Seattle Democrat, tried last session to pass legislation to set up a medical marijuana task force to make a recommendation to the Legislature. The bill didn’t survive the session, but Kohl-Welles says she plans to try again.
It’s important to clarify the issue, for the sake of law enforcement, doctors and patients, Kohl-Welles said.
“There’s too much ambiguity,” Kohl-Welles said in a telephone interview this week.
Judge Price didn’t think there was much ambiguity in Brandon’s case. He didn’t believe it was necessary for her to use marijuana and refused to authorize it.
Brandon’s trial is scheduled for early September. She’s sure that with her past criminal record a guilty plea or verdict will mean jail time.
“I die a little bit each time I go to jail,” Brandon said.