NO RELIEF

I was only awake a few moments when the pain fired up. Fingertips burning from within like they were in a microwave. One flash and I holler out loud then laugh out loud thinking how lucky I am to live alone because that one would have awakened the house. No sense laying here trying to go back to sleep.

What the hell is going on with me? Reach for the thermos and pour out a cup of steaming mud. Trader Joe’s “Dark” blend. And dark it is. A sure distraction from my boiling hands and aching knees. What the hell is going on? Beautiful weather. Eating right. What the hell?

Mollie Fry. What must it be like for her, to wake up in a cold and heartless jail cell with no hope of relief? If I’m feeling sorry for myself sitting here in Paradise, what in God’s name must it be like for Mollie and Dale?

Touch keyboard and yell as my right thumb explodes. Then the left. I press myself back into the heating pad and think of a metal cot in a chairless cell. For me, relief is sitting on the little table next to me. I know that one puff of Blue Dream, a locally grown and lovingly cultivated little Sativa, will place my pain just outside my reach – or maybe it will place me just outside my pain’s reach – but the point is, I can get relief. Mollie can’t. On this, the fourth day of her incarceration, it must really be hitting home. I wonder if she’s already focused on helping others around her or are they looking out for her. Will she be embraced like a sister or will she have to fight for survival?

Feeling slightly guilty, I grab my pipe. With Eric Satie’s Sarabande No. 1 drifting from my laptop speakers I can’t help but imagine the relentless, inescapable cacophony of incarceration. A thousand tiny cuts to the psyche every minute of every day.

I am free. Free to sit here and drink coffee and kill my pain with medical marijuana… when people exactly like me are rotting in prison for doing the same damn thing.

Kind of takes the fun out of getting high.

What I can’t get my head around is that this is America. I can’t help but remember being a little girl living behind the Iron Curtain preaching about America. Land of the Free.

Went to court with Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron yesterday. It was a bloodbath. A very civilized, soft-spoken bloodbath. A goddamn vale of tears. In such a soft spoken and civilized setting, it’s hard to believe (BAM! Scream at the top of my voice as my finger explodes on the keyboard...) hard to believe… where the hell was I? Hard to remember what you’re writing when your hands are exploding. If this wasn’t so funny, it wouldn’t be funny at all. Where was I?

Sitting in court. Straining to hear what Allison Margolin is telling the judge in her rapid-fire sotto voce. She has his undivided attention. Finally he says he’s heard enough, read enough, thinks he knows enough about case law in general and this case in particular to come down with a ruling.

Motion denied. No defense for Joe and Joe. The case will be tried on it’s “merits.” We will be looking into what that means in the weeks to come as we drum up support for... the Defendants.

Fear takes up residence in my solar plexus. Nausea rolls in like a noxious wave. But that is neither here nor there. Medical Marijuana 411 would like me to send a quick report on yesterday's courtroom drama:

CATCH 22 FOR JOE AND JOE

After hearing arguments from attorneys Allison Margolin and Chris Glew, Judge Charles D. Sheldon ruled that Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron will not be allowed to present an affirmative defense in their case -- meaning they will not be allowed to tell a jury that they were providing medical marijuana in full compliance with the Compassionate Use Act.

Instead, interpreting the law to mean any sale of marijuana is illegal, the case will be tried on its “merits.” In other words, using this far-from-compassionate interpretation of the COMPASSIONATE USE ACT, if money changes hands between provider and patient, a crime has been committed and the provider can be sent to prison.

Said Judge Sheldon, “Judge Rodriguez did the right thing…. I won’t grant the defense motion.”

He did leave the door open a tiny crack, saying, “If you can prove sales are not illegal, you can make an affirmative defense.” The catch? By his interpretation, and that of the judge before him, sales are illegal, so you can not make an affirmative defense. “Even if the judge cannot prove that they are illegal.”

He also made it clear that Jury Nullification will not be allowed. “I’m going to limit Voir Dire to actual purposes…. I am likely to not allow questions on how did you vote, what do you think of the law.”

Trial date set for June 17. Papers may be filed beginning June 9. Peasants with pitchforks prepare.

Coming very soon: Full reports on both cases.