Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
The patient petition filed with the Colorado Supreme Court last week was denied on Monday (1/10), only 5 days after it was filed. The Supreme Court opted not to decide the case, forcing the patient and caregiver plaintiffs to start in lower courts and work their way through the appellate courts, a process that will take much longer.
The petition had been filed on Jan. 5, 2011 by Andrew B. Reid, senior counsel for Springer and Steinberg, P.C., a Denver law firm, on behalf of Kathleen Chippi, a Nederland caregiver and dispensary owner, and the Patient and Caregivers Rights Litigation project, an association of patients, caregivers and physicians that have been harmed by the passage of these laws.
The petition was an original jurisdiction petition, asking the Supreme Court to decide urgent constitutional issues. The Court has discretion on whether to decide original actions and hears only a small percentage of such petitions filed each year. So its denial of this case was not a total surprise, but patients had hoped for more compassion from the court.
"Apparently, the Supreme Court does not think that it is a matter of great urgency that sick and dying people in Colorado are being denied their constitutional rights of safe and confidential access to medicine," says plaintiff Kathleen Chippi. "This delay in deciding these constitutional issues only harms patients by forcing them to wait months or years for the Court's decision and spend thousands of dollars to decide issues that the Court knows it will be ruling on eventually. In the meantime, the Department of Revenue and the state legislature will continue with impunity to enact unconstitutional laws that harm patients." She says, "We are being treated like second-class citizens yet again."
The petition had asked the court to overturn large parts of laws passed by the Colorado legislature last year (HB 10-1284 and SB 10-109) because they restrict patient access to medicine and violate patient privacy rights guaranteed by the Colorado Constitution.
The Department of Revenue is in the process of replacing the Colorado Department of Health and Environment's confidential patient registry with their own massive government database of patient medicine information. The new Patient and Medicine Tracking Database and Surveillance System will cost the state at least $4 million to set up and will be shared by 5 government agencies and state and federal law enforcement. It will include up to 16,000 different security cameras in Medical Marijuana Centers, visible to law enforcement via Internet web cameras 24/7. The MMCs will be required to videotape patients as they purchase their medicine and log each patient purchase into the database. All of this will be open to law enforcement, including CBI and DEA, and other agencies on demand.
Just as the state has taken away the Constitutional protection of caregivers, they are now taking away the Constitutional protection for patients. MMC applicants were forced to revoke their constitutional right to be a caregiver in exchange for the statutory privilege of applying to operate an MMC. Similarly, patients are being told they must revoke their constitutional right to patient confidentiality in order for the "privilege" of purchasing their medicine at an MMC. Not only is this is completely backwards of how the constitution was supposed to work, but it opens patients up to immeasurable harm if (when) their information is leaked from the government database. Patients stand to lose their homes, their jobs, their health insurance, their children and more if it becomes known that they are medical marijuana patients. That is why confidentiality is at the foundation of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Constitutional Amendment.
Chippi and other patients are worried these electronic patient records can never be secured on the Internet, as evidenced by WikiLeaks and other recent "accidental" disclosures of records. Once the records have been leaked, the harm has been done and is irreparable to patients.
NewsHawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: cannabislawsuits.com
Author: Kathleen Chippi
Copyright: 2011 Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
Contact: Cannabis Lawusit: Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
Website: Cannabis Lawusit: Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
The petition had been filed on Jan. 5, 2011 by Andrew B. Reid, senior counsel for Springer and Steinberg, P.C., a Denver law firm, on behalf of Kathleen Chippi, a Nederland caregiver and dispensary owner, and the Patient and Caregivers Rights Litigation project, an association of patients, caregivers and physicians that have been harmed by the passage of these laws.
The petition was an original jurisdiction petition, asking the Supreme Court to decide urgent constitutional issues. The Court has discretion on whether to decide original actions and hears only a small percentage of such petitions filed each year. So its denial of this case was not a total surprise, but patients had hoped for more compassion from the court.
"Apparently, the Supreme Court does not think that it is a matter of great urgency that sick and dying people in Colorado are being denied their constitutional rights of safe and confidential access to medicine," says plaintiff Kathleen Chippi. "This delay in deciding these constitutional issues only harms patients by forcing them to wait months or years for the Court's decision and spend thousands of dollars to decide issues that the Court knows it will be ruling on eventually. In the meantime, the Department of Revenue and the state legislature will continue with impunity to enact unconstitutional laws that harm patients." She says, "We are being treated like second-class citizens yet again."
The petition had asked the court to overturn large parts of laws passed by the Colorado legislature last year (HB 10-1284 and SB 10-109) because they restrict patient access to medicine and violate patient privacy rights guaranteed by the Colorado Constitution.
The Department of Revenue is in the process of replacing the Colorado Department of Health and Environment's confidential patient registry with their own massive government database of patient medicine information. The new Patient and Medicine Tracking Database and Surveillance System will cost the state at least $4 million to set up and will be shared by 5 government agencies and state and federal law enforcement. It will include up to 16,000 different security cameras in Medical Marijuana Centers, visible to law enforcement via Internet web cameras 24/7. The MMCs will be required to videotape patients as they purchase their medicine and log each patient purchase into the database. All of this will be open to law enforcement, including CBI and DEA, and other agencies on demand.
Just as the state has taken away the Constitutional protection of caregivers, they are now taking away the Constitutional protection for patients. MMC applicants were forced to revoke their constitutional right to be a caregiver in exchange for the statutory privilege of applying to operate an MMC. Similarly, patients are being told they must revoke their constitutional right to patient confidentiality in order for the "privilege" of purchasing their medicine at an MMC. Not only is this is completely backwards of how the constitution was supposed to work, but it opens patients up to immeasurable harm if (when) their information is leaked from the government database. Patients stand to lose their homes, their jobs, their health insurance, their children and more if it becomes known that they are medical marijuana patients. That is why confidentiality is at the foundation of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Constitutional Amendment.
Chippi and other patients are worried these electronic patient records can never be secured on the Internet, as evidenced by WikiLeaks and other recent "accidental" disclosures of records. Once the records have been leaked, the harm has been done and is irreparable to patients.
NewsHawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: cannabislawsuits.com
Author: Kathleen Chippi
Copyright: 2011 Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
Contact: Cannabis Lawusit: Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
Website: Cannabis Lawusit: Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project
