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Dammit, Jim! I’m a Lawyer, Not a Doctor!

March 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Medical Marijuana


Earlier Friday it was brought to my attention that a doctor who recommends medical marijuana allegedly told his patient — my client — that “Rick Horowitz does not know medical marijuana law.”

Why a doctor would be practicing medical marijuana law — allegedly telling patients that what I told them is not true, and giving them what he thinks is the “correct” legal advice — is beyond me. Just as it would be illegal (not to mention unethical) for me to practice medicine in the State of California, so is it also illegal for doctors to practice law, unless perhaps the doctor in question also has a law license in addition to his medical license. (And this one doesn’t.)

The irony of the situation is that the client in question was one who knew better, because I obtained for him the exact result that he wanted in his case.1

Dismissals without even going to trial are like that — they frequently result in happy clients who think of me as a lawyer who does, in fact, know medical marijuana law.

And I get a lot of dismissals on medical marijuana cases. I’ve yet to have one actually go all the way to trial. In fact, because I’m “a criminal defense lawyer who knows medical marijuana law,” instead of a “medical marijuana lawyer,” I have even won dismissals in medical marijuana cases without ever mentioning the word “marijuana.”

As one of my medical marijuana clients wrote in an online review concerning my representation of her:

Mr. Horowitz displayed complete knowledge of the laws pertaining to California’s Medical Marijuana laws, as he explained in detail the specific laws and previous cases that pertained to my case.2

That case involving felony possession for sale — among other charges — was another where I obtained a complete dismissal.

Frankly, I’ve been puzzled as to why I don’t have more medical marijuana clients contacting me than I do. But today’s revelation may explain it.

And what of the case about which the good doctor was criticizing my legal knowledge, offering (apparently) to substitute his own?  [Read more...]


Endnotes:
  1. But he just bit his tongue, because he did not want to get into an argument with the doctor who was providing his medical marijuana recommendation. [↩]
  2. To read more reviews from my clients, check my Testimonials page, which contains excerpts from Avvo. [↩]
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Imagine If There Were A Law…

December 11, 2012 by 1 Comment
Medical Marijuana


Imagine if there were a law that made it illegal to possess Vicodin.

Well, actually, as it turns out, there is a law that makes it illegal to possess Vicodin…

…without a prescription.1

Now imagine that the police stopped you for some reason — or maybe they heard from a friend, who heard from a friend that you had some Vicodin — so they search your car, or your house, or you, and they find Vicodin.

But you have a prescription. So you whip out your prescription, show it to the cops, and they let you go.

Actually, it would never happen exactly like that, because most likely your Vicodin would be in a prescription bottle, with the prescription written right on it. In any event, if the only thing the police found was a prescription bottle with some Vicodin in it, they would be extremely unlikely to arrest you for that reason alone.2

But what if the police decided, for some reason, that they didn’t believe “having a prescription” was a valid defense to your having Vicodin. Suppose the police decided that everyone they found with Vicodin must be breaking the law. So everyone they stop with Vicodin shows them a prescription, or they see it written right on the bottle, but they go ahead and take all those people to jail anyway, charge them with felony possession of a controlled substance, and force them to defend themselves in court, possibly wiping out their savings in the process — and possibly going to prison anyway.

That would never happen, though, right? Well, at least we know it doesn’t happen to most people possessing Vicodin with a prescription. 

Now imagine that we were talking about medical marijuana instead of Vicodin.

Medical Marijuana

Medical Marijuana

[Read more...]


Endnotes:
  1. Cal. Health & Safety Code § 11350. [↩]
  2. Mind you, when the police want to arrest somebody, they’re going to find some way to do it. But they would be extremely unlikely to arrest someone for possessing a bottle of Vicodin which appeared to have the proper information showing that it was a valid prescription. They’ll find some other reason. [↩]
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People v. Jackson: The Judge Was High — The Judges Still Are

October 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Smoking joint


I actually meant to blog about the San Diego case of People v. Jackson a couple weeks ago, when I obtained a copy of the Appellant’s Opening Brief in the case. Being busy working up some new medical marijuana cases myself, I didn’t get around to it.

Frankly, I assumed, after a cursory reading of the case, that it was a no-brainer: The trial judge must have been high. The case was going to be reversed on appeal.

And so it has been.  [Read more...]

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Tokin’ Appreciation: Medical Marijuana & “Profit”

October 20, 2012 by 1 Comment
Marijuana & Money


A cop walks into a bar….

Wait, that’s a joke, and what I want to write about today is no joke. This article is about a profound misunderstanding of the laws of the State of California, specifically relating to the sale of medical marijuana, and over what it means to “profit” from such sales. Because people who should not be arrested for exchanging marijuana for money are routinely arrested in California for making that exchange.

So let’s start again.

A cop walks into a marijuana grow…

[Read more...]

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A Proper “Medical Marijuana” Defense

August 19, 2012 by 2 Comments
Medical Marijuana


I don’t often mention my cases online. I figure my clients deserve as much anonymity as I can give them, regardless of whether I win or lose. So you won’t find very many of my blog articles where I talk about the cases I’ve handled.

Today, though, I’m going to talk a little bit about one I won on Friday.

[Read more...]

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Evergreen Update

May 21, 2012 by 4 Comments
Medical Marijuana


In a previous post, “Dispensing (With) Law: Strict Constructionism & Medical Marijuana,” I predicted that the California Supreme Court would take the case of City of Lake Forest v. Evergreen Holistic for review, which would make the case not citable.

I mentioned that for medical marijuana defense attorneys, there was both good and bad in Evergreen.

Well, my copy of Friday’s edition of the Daily Appellate Report just arrived.

Evergreen was taken up for review. It is no longer citable.

That’s the first time I’ve ever predicted that the California Supreme Court would take a case for review. I don’t know if I should feel good that I was right, or not. I guess we’ll have to wait to see what the end-result is to decide.

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Dispensing (With) Law: Strict Constructionism & Medical Marijuana

March 4, 2012 by 16 Comments
Medical Marijuana


[UPDATE May 21, 2012. In my original article (below), I predicted that the California Supreme Court would take Evergreen Holistic for review. Friday's Daily Appellate Report announced that they did so. This means Evergreen Holistic is no longer citable.]

Recently, I wrote about what happens to laws when law enforcement doesn’t like certain laws: they simply pretend the laws they don’t like don’t exist. Attorneys who have been around longer and know more than me, like Scott Greenfield, or Brian Tannebaum, or Mark Bennett, will point out that this is nothing new. Those with the power to do what they wish have always done what they wished. There is truth to the saying that there is nothing new under the sun.

With regards to medical marijuana dispensaries, there may finally be a little pushback from the appellate courts, even if they don’t make much more sense interpreting the law than the trial courts.  [Read more...]

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When Law ENFORCEMENT Doesn’t Like the Law

February 19, 2012 by 7 Comments
Marijuana


By now it should be no secret that many local government officials — at least in Central California — do not believe that there is any way in which medical marijuana can be legally possessed, used, cultivated, transported, or sold anywhere in the United States. This specifically means that in any city or county in California that decides it shall not happen, it will not happen, regardless of what the law “on the books” states.

Since the law as written does allow medical marijuana to be legally possessed, used, cultivated, transported, or sold in California, the problem for such cities and counties has been how to get around the law. So far, though, that has proven to be a very small problem: the courts also disapprove of the law and have done everything possible to help the cities and counties subvert it, all the while pretending to uphold the utility of the law as to individual patients.

[Read more...]

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Up In Smoke

November 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment
up-in-smoke


In 1996, Californians passed the Compassionate Use Act in order to ensure that seriously-ill Californians who found a benefit to a natural medicine could, in fact, obtain the medicine.

Unfortunately, the medicine was one which numerous persons — sick in other, much more serious ways — deemed so dangerous that no one could make their own decisions regarding whether or not it should be taken. The government was called upon to outlaw the freedom to decide what to put into one’s own body.

U.S. citizens had already lived through a period in history where one group of people decided that putting another drug — alcohol — into one’s body should not be a choice anyone could freely make. But the much more dangerous drug had required a constitutional amendment in order to ban it — which, incidentally, didn’t work, either — and it had been a lot of work to get that amendment passed.

So the United States government, following the lead of numerous local governments before it, simply decided to ignore the United States Constitution and abrogated the rights of U.S. citizens to decide what to do with their own bodies.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports that these enemies of the United States Constitution are making a resurgence against those who would recognize the rights of the ill to treat their illnesses as they saw fit.

Whereas the voters of the State of California had enacted legislation enabling access to medical marijuana, the courts, siding with law enforcement, have said that individual local governments may ignore that vote and may ban access.

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Pot Smoke & Mirrors

October 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Medical Marijuana


Today’s Fresno Bee will carry a story — I’ve only seen the online version so far, which promises “more” for today in the paper edition — concerning a resurgent commitment from the federal government to crack down on medical marijuana.

It’s important to understand that the government response to medical marijuana is un-American, relatively new, and based on bad science — not to mention bad government.

[Read more...]

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