Medical Marijuana and Maryland Law
Marijuana is classified in Maryland and generally at the federal level as a Schedule I controlled dangerous substance, to wit a chemical that has
(1) a high potential for abuse of the substance;
(2) no accepted medical use in the United States for the substance; and
(3) a lack of accepted safety for use of the substance under medical supervision.
Notwithstanding this general categorization of marijuana under Schedule I as having “no accepted medical use”, Maryland law also provides for a sentence mitigation for a person convicted of possession of marijuana and, in more limited cases, a full defense to prosecution when medical conditions and/or medical advice support the use of marijuana.
Under section 5-601 of the Criminal Law article of the Maryland Annotated Code, most controlled dangerous substances have a theoretical penalty maximum of 4 years in jail and a maximum $25,000.00 fine. Marijuana’s maximum is a 1 year penalty and a $1,000.00 fine. For marijuana possessors who possess for a demonstrable medical reason – notwithstanding a lack of accepted medical use per the Schedule I standard, the maximum penalty is $100.00, no jail.
Under more limited provisions of that statute recently enacted, the possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana outside of public spaces may be constitute not merely a sentence mitigator but outright protected by law under an “affirmative defense.” The Law Office of Bruce Godfrey lauds this wise provision enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, while wishing it went much further.
The problem with the law is that the medical marijuana possession allowed by statute requires someone else to commit a felony. The statute protects only possession in private, not distribution, production or sale of the allowed marijuana in Maryland. In order to come to possess the marijuana for which the affirmative defense applies, someone must grow that marijuana outside of Maryland or in Maryland (prohibited by Maryland law and other states’ laws as a felony), deliver the finished product to the Maryland either in Maryland (crime of distribution and possession with intent are both felonies in Maryland) and bringing the product from the point of sale to the home of the end user is possession not protected by the statute (presumably on public roads.) Cultivation for personal use is also a felony and the possession of a plant with more than one ounce of product in the plant is not protected by this statute (and appears, on its surface, to be possession with intent to distribute.)
It is my (Godfrey’s) hope that Maryland law will ultimately allow marijuana possession in the same way that it allows the transport of guns: from lawful point to lawful point, sealed tightly and not consumed on the street. Civilized people do not want the streets or sidewalks to become venues for the consumption of marijuana; we don’t need driving while high (though the hazards appear lower than those of drunk driving, it still should be prosecuted) and if second-hand tobacco is a hazard, second-hand marijuana is equally or more offensive. No one should consume marijuana in an automobile; cars are for driving and the automobile should not marinate in a mild hallucinogen. But the prosecution of marijuana possessors who have violated no other laws is just a waste and an injustice in a land that reveres Liberty with a statue in Her honor.
I (Godfrey) was robbed at gunpoint in January 2012. The detectives and uniformed officers of the Baltimore County Police Department were amazing in tracking down the suspects. The idea that any of the law enforcement officers who were so helpful in the robbery might have been distracted by handling some 24 year-old’s possession of a $35.00 worth of BC Bud just makes me sick, both as a critic of the drug war and as a crime victim who had a thug’s .38 snub-nosed revolver pointed at my face.
