Are Medical Marijuana Patients Immune from Prosecution for Unlawful Possession

Medical Marijuana Drug Possession: Los Angeles, CA

Am I PROTECTED from prosecution for possession of marijuana as a medical marijuana PATIENT?
:wallbang:

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Quoting jsmr79

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Medical Marijuana Drug Possession: Los Angeles, CA

Am I PROTECTED from prosecution for possession of marijuana as a medical marijuana PATIENT?
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Not necessarily. As a PATIENT you are not immune from prosecution. With a recommendation (i.e. a "215 card") you can raise an affirmative defense and may not be prosecuted. Only the state issued DHS card is a virtual guarantee against simple possession for your own personal use.

Also matters where you possessed it. Either card means little outside California and nothing to the feds.

Additionally, the mere fact that a person has a "recommendation" does not necessarily mean that he or she will be immune from prosecution. Since recommendations are not uniform and can easily be faked, and many medical doctors will not verify issuing a recommendation to a specific patent, the possession of a recommendation can sometimes be effectively worthless. In my county the DA has never once gotten a doctor to verify a recommendation which tends to make such documents suspect at the outset. Probably the only reason marijuana possession charges are not pursued is the fact that they are infractions and not worth the time and effort of the officers to preserve the evidence and write the report for these infractions so the police tend to give them a pass.

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Quoting cdwjava

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I'm not aware of any federal prosecution in CA for possession even BEFORE this legislation, Toney. The feds didn't tend to pursue simple possession cases even before Prop 215.

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The feds don't prosecute many simple drug possession cases. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, for example, the DOJ prosecuted a total 28,693 drug cases nationwide. Out of those, 28,655 cases were for drug trafficking charges and just 38 were for possession or other drug charges. That’s 38 cases for the entire country. Source: DOJ Federal Justice Statistics for 2012, table 4.1.

The Feds don’t actively search for simple possession cases. Federal officers make arrests and the DOJ prosecutes them when they happen to come across it, e.g. park service officer finding a park visitor with drugs, for example. That's not unlike city police and county sherriffs in most places: they don't go out actively looking for the simple possession cases, but they act on it when they come across it while doing other stuff. The difference between the feds and city/county patrol officers is that the feds don't do much patrol work outside DC and federal property like federal parks, so the feds are much less likely to come across it in their work than city/county law enforcement officers do.

my point was they could have jailed medical users in the past but now they cant due to the new amendment that was PASSED dec 2014, that protects medical users from prosecution. answering the OP question on the federal level.

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Quoting tonynewman

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my point was they could have jailed medical users in the past but now they cant due to the new amendment that was PASSED dec 2014, that protects medical users from prosecution. answering the OP question on the federal level.

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The DOJ would disagree with you.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...401-story.html

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Quoting tonynewman

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my point was they could have jailed medical users in the past but now they cant due to the new amendment that was PASSED dec 2014, that protects medical users from prosecution. answering the OP question on the federal level.

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Amendment to what tony? Post it here so we can read what you are misinterpreting. N