(Ed. note: Just when we think that they can't get any stupider or any crueler....)

See
Press Conference Tuesday for McCormick’s Appeal To Be Allowed to Use Medical Marijuana -- Musika To Testify
and
Judge Denies Cancer Patient Todd McCormick "Any Form Of Marijuana," --  Marinol, Even "Hemp Seed Oil."

CONFIRMATION OF PRESS CONFERENCE

[The press conference with McCormick, Musikka, and McCormick’s attorney, David Michael, will take place as scheduled Tuesday at 2:00 PM (Pacific time) at the Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Avenue, Corinthian Room, Mezzanine Level.

Protesters will be at the old federal building courthouse at Spring and Main at 1:00 PM, march to the press conference to arrive by 2:00 PM, and march back to the courthouse after the press conference for continued protest.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

Federal Judge Refuses to Hear Cancer Patient Todd McCormick’s Plea for Medical Marijuana

Judge Abruptly Denies Motion and Cancels Long-Set Hearing

March 17, 1998, Los Angeles. In an astonishing move late yesterday afternoon, Federal Magistrate Judge James McMahon canceled a long-set hearing on a motion from cancer patient Todd McCormick to use medical marijuana while awaiting federal trial for medical marijuana cultivation.

Later in the afternoon, Judge McMahon issued his ruling by fax: the motion, in its entirety, was denied.

"Why won’t he even let me speak?" asked McCormick, shocked by the news when it reached him late yesterday afternoon. "I haven’t been able to use my medicine for eight months now. I have been in constant pain. Tomorrow’s hearing was my one hope. I thought maybe I could convince the judge. But now, I don’t even have the chance to speak. I’m just devastated."

Also not permitted a chance to testify is Elvy Musikka, a glaucoma patient who receives medical marijuana directly from the federal government. In opposition to McCormick’s medical marijuana use, the federal prosecutors in their opposition papers (at www.marijuanamagazine.com) maintained the federal government does not recognize medical marijuana - no matter what the voters of California have to say about it - so McCormick’s motion should be denied.

"I’m coming to tell the judge the federal government does consider marijuana a medicine, and I can show him the federally grown marijuana to prove it," said Musikka in an interview from her Florida home on Monday morning. "If the judge doesn’t want to hear that fact, he doesn’t have to, but I’ll be there to tell him just in case he does."

Apparently, he does not.

The judge’s sudden cancellation of the hearing has caused a greater stir in the media than it probably would have if announced tomorrow as planned. The news made at least one local television newscast by 6:00 PM, and McCormick spent the remainder of Monday evening talking with the press, including an extensive interview with PBS.

"They take away the medication I have been successfully using for thirteen years, then I try the official, legal, FDA-approved, DEA-approved, doctor-prescribed, $15-a-pill medication, and just as I’m starting to get some relief, and they take that away, too," said McCormick who faces a mandatory ten-year sentence-which could be life without possibility of parole at the judge’s discretion. "Now, they won’t let me even ask for relief in person. They don’t mind torturing me; they just don’t want to look at the result."

Without his medication, McCormick suffers from extreme weight-loss caused by nausea, insomnia, and lack of appetite. These are the result of intense physical pain. McCormick’s body was left so deformed by childhood cancer operations and radiation treatments that a physician, seeing only his x-rays, was surprised to learn the adult McCormick was not permanently confined to a wheelchair.

While federal judges can deny motions without a hearing, seldom is a hearing scheduled (originally for March 9, 1998), then rescheduled for today, March 17, 1998, and then cancelled less than 24 hours before the hearing, followed only hours later with an abrupt denial of the motion.

Although the judge gave no reason for the sudden change, it is believed the controversial nature of the medical marijuana decision and the increasing interest by the press were the cause of the last-minute cancellation.

"This is a political hot potato that no one wants to touch," said McCormick’s publisher Peter McWilliams. "The federal bureaucracy has determined Todd McCormick must pay for his cultivation of medical marijuana with his life, but I cannot believe one person in that entire bureaucracy wants to be the one to say to Todd, face-to-face, ‘We’re locking you up now, where you will be in pain for the rest of your life. We’re doing it for the children.’"

"I don’t think Judge McMahon enjoyed being the federal messenger of bad news any more than any other compassionate human being would. I can’t think that Judge McMahon is a happy Irishman this St. Patrick’s Day for what he had to do to McCormick," said McWilliams.

McWilliams is a cancer survivor living with AIDS who uses medical marijuana. "Murderers, rapists, child abductors, these are people even I would look in the eye and say, ‘You’re not going to live anywhere near the rest of us for a long time.’ But Todd? Anyone who knows Todd, who knows his medical history, who knows his dedication to getting his beloved healing plant to sick people, also knows that this entire prosecution is a travesty."

In turning down the motion, Judge McMahon also refused to lower McCormick’s bail from the unusually high $500,000 set when he was first arrested and accused of drug trafficking. The Federal Grand Jury returned a single indictment against McCormick, for cultivation only, specifically permitted under California’s Proposition 215.

The Federal Prosecutors, nevertheless, claim McCormick is "a flight risk" and a danger to the "safety" of "other persons and the community" because he cultivated medical marijuana, after the passage of 215, behind Bel Air walls.

The federal position on medical marijuana in this case, written by Federal Prosecutors Nora Mandella, David Scheper, Fernando Aenlle-Rocha, and Mary Fulginiti, will be posted today on the Medical Marijuana Magazine Online (www.marijuanamagazine.com).

McCormick and Musikka are available for interviews. Please contact:

Todd McCormick 213-650-4906

David Michael 415-986-5591

Elvy Musikka (In LA Tuesday, March 17-19, 1998) 213-650-4906

(Ed. note: The following is from Todd McCormick’s mother, Ann. The judge says that there were no new facts. Well, perhaps he is right. There is merely the same old injustice and indifference and even hostility to well-established fact. )

(!! Did he READ it?)

Denies Entire Motion Late Monday Afternoon

The mood of the moment = ‘devastated’.

Todd will appeal the ruling (hell of a lot of good that does in the meantime....)

They have denied him use of his doctor’s prescription for Marinol (Is that legal??? To deny a licensed medical doctor’s prescribed treatment? It doesn’t sound like it should be.)

He is also prohibited from using any hemp products (Hemp Oil, flour, Hempeh Burgers..—ANY hemp derivatives) -- LEGALLY available products.

Right now, I’m really aggravated (that’s an understatement) But, I spent a couple of decades just trying to keep this kid alive... and we, (mostly Todd) found a nutritional program and ‘health’ regimen that has kept him remarkably healthier and more active than anyone, 20 years ago (especially his doctors), would’ve expected or dared predict.

I’m very concerned about how ALL of this, medical treatment (or lack of), the diet disruptions, the STRESS of it ALL - (especially the bureaucratic head games) is affecting his blood counts.

I can’t believe the judge denied the ENTIRE motion. It was all true and.... this makes NO sense...

Peace,

Ann

--- snail mail: