Court Of Appeals: Medical Marijuana Law Not Retroactive

[guapo ko]

The medical marijuana law only allows a defense for possession to those people in possession of the drug after the law took effect, a Court of Appeals decision earlier said.

In the unpublished case (People v. Campbell, COA docket No. 291345) appellate judges reversed a trial court opinion that lifted charges against a man found with several marijuana plants.

They said even if it was for medical purposes and even though his trial wasn't held until after the law went into effect, the man was arrested before the law went into effect and it can't be applied retroactively.

Laws are generally not to be applied retroactively unless the Legislature puts it in the statute, said the opinion. That is especially true of laws that create a new right, which applies to the medical marijuana law.

Despite the defendants' assertion that the court should rely on a 1930 case against a man who got off the hook for alcohol he possessed during Prohibition because the ban on alcohol was later reversed, this law does not create the right to possess marijuana like the end of Prohibition restored the right to consume alcohol.

The medical marijuana law simply offers a possible defense for possession of marijuana, something that is still illegal in most circumstances, said the per curiam opinion signed by Judge Peter O'Connell, Judge Patrick Meter and Judge Donald Owens.