A DEFINING MOMENT

The California Supreme Court last week performed a very important
service for the citizens of California by spelling out once and for
all, what a "primary caregiver" is for the purposes of growing,
possessing and transporting medical marijuana.

What it is not, the court ruled, is anyone who simply grows marijuana
and sells it - or even gives it - to a medical marijuana patient.

This issue of caregiving was also spelled out pretty clearly, we have
thought all along, in Prop. 215, the voter initiative which legalized
medical marijuana for the seriously ill and dying.

The California Supreme Court cited Prop. 215 which states that the
primary caregiver of the medical marijuana patient is the person who
"has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or
safety of that person."

The court then went on to make it crystal clear that all the
gibberish coming out of courts up and down the state about marijuana
growers being caregivers was null and void.

In this county, like many others in California, commercial pot
growers have been getting away with waving "caregiver cards" -
basically a permission slip from a medical marijuana patient
designating the grower as his or her caregiver - in the faces of law
enforcement officers, and smart defense lawyers have managed to
convince lazy judges and naive juries that the law allowed it.

The California Supreme Court saw that for what it was without any
trouble: a hijacking of the intent of Prop. 215 for greed and profit.

They concluded that in order to be a caregiver, a person must - at a
minimum:

1) consistently provide actual care for the patient

2) provide that care independent of any marijuana
treatment

3) provide the care before marijuana came into the
picture

In other words, be more than a patient's dealer.

Hallelujah.