By Dale Gieringer | For CAL NORML
Susan Soares (left) holds the microphone for Lanny Swerdlow, who is about to ask Dale Gieringer a question at the Next Steps Conference at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Los Angeles. Ms. Soares helped organize this event and found her house raided two days later.
In an unprecedented ruling, a Los Angeles court denied a motion by plaintiff & DPFCA member Susan Soares to return her medical marijuana on the grounds that her doctor had not specified a dosage amount or frequency in her recommendation.
Soares, who was growing for a local collective, had her medicine seized by hostile police last March, and had petitioned the court for it to be returned after charges against her were dropped.
It is generally the practice of most medical cannabis specialists never to prescribe a dosage quantity.
The California Medical Association recommends that physicians never do so, because no dosage guidelines for cannabis have ever been established.
Effective dosage varies greatly according to the potency and delivery form of the medication.
Patients regularly control their own dosage through self-titration.
In the court’s decision, Judge Antonio Barreto, Jr. declared that “as a matter of law” any recommendation that Soares’ doctor made that does “not involve frequency and dosage both is insufficient, period, and does not lead to any lawful possession of any amount of marijuana.”
The judge mysteriously stated that his ruling was based on the Tripett decision.
Soares had been growing for several patients, but the court declined to return even six plants for her own individual use.
Richard P Steeb
Hey “Judge”, where do I sign up for contempt of your court? You have proven yourself to be an idiot. Really. I medicate as I see fit. Deal with it. Chump.