MEDICAL MARIJUANA ENTHUSIAST HAULED TO JAIL

MSNBC/KNBC–LA

LOS ANGELES, April 3 -A federal magistrate judge Friday ordered that a Proposition 215 advocate Todd McCormick be locked up since he tested positive for marijuana three different times.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James McMahon set an April 22 bail revocation hearing. Then it will be decided if McCormick will be locked up until trial, and whether the $500,000 bail that actor Woody Harrelson posted for him must be forfeited.

But McCormick attorney Eric Shevin immediately filed an emergency appeal with U.S. District Judge George King, who will preside over McCormick’s trial, asking that McMahon’s order be overturned. He expects to talk with King by phone on Monday, because the judge is out of town. If the judge doesn’t "do something," Shevin says he will appeal to the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The desperate legal maneuvering came after McCormick at Friday’s hearing pleaded with the magistrate judge to keep him out of jail.  "Your honor, putting me in jail will serve no one," he said through his tears. "There is not justice in this. I didn’t use any illegal substances. I am not using marijuana." McCormick, 27, gave the judge a history of his medical problems, which include 10 bouts of cancer since childhood, five fused vertebrae and one hip shorter than the other.  "I am in constant pain, your honor," he said. "I sleep on a special bed with a special pillow. Over there at the jail, the mattress is only about two inches thick."

Outwardly, the judge was unmoved. "Mr. McCormick was clearly on notice of what this court required the last time he was in here," McMahon said.

Marshals leading him away refused to let McCormick take the special pillow he had brought in case he did get sent back to jail. "I can’t believe this," McCormick said, burying his face in his hands as his attorney held him. "I don’t deserve to go to prison."

McCormick was arrested last July 29 in a rented Bel-Air mansion, after authorities discovered he was growing more than 4,000 marijuana plants. He is set to be tried later this year on one count of "manufacturing" pot. He faces a minimum 10-year sentence.

Whatever evidence there is that McCormick violated the terms of his bail is unclear. But under the terms of his release, he was forbidden to use marijuana. The order recently was expanded to include all prescription drugs, including Marinol, a legally prescribed drug that contains synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the essence of pot. McCormick was hauled into court March 3, after he tested positive for marijuana use on Jan. 20. That’s when the judge ordered him to stop taking Marinol and "hemp" seed oil.

Then on March 12, 16 and 18, McCormick again tested positive for THC, the judge said today. Shevin says those "dirty" tests reflect Marinol still in his client’s system, and that the levels of THC are falling. He claims McCormick’s body does not shed THC as fast as other people, supposedly because his client’s liver is damaged from radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

The judge said he would allow McCormick to undergo drug testing while in jail, until the hearing, to determine what the levels are.

After Friday ‘s session, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Aenlle-Rocha was asked to comment on the latest developments. "I have nothing to say. We’re standing by the probation officer’s report," he said.

U.S. marshals showed up at McCormick’s scaled-down home, this one in Laurel Canyon, Thursday night to arrest him. But he wasn’t there. He agreed later to surrender Friday on his own.

McCormick claims he has the right to grow and use pot under California’s Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative voters approved in 1996.