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An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust

By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Thu Oct 13, 2005 at 04:35:38 AM EST
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I can't think of any other way than outrageous to describe this:

An Army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for growing marijuana to treat his chronic pain was yanked from a hospital by Canadian authorities, driven to the border with a catheter still attached, and turned over to U.S. officials, his lawyer says. He then went five days with no medical treatment and only ibuprofen for the pain, attorney Douglas Hiatt said.

Steven W. Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when he shuffled into federal court for a detention hearing Wednesday, Hiatt said. "This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days for no reason," Hiatt said.

It gets worse: The judge ordered him released to a hospital, but instead, he got sent to another jail:

Here's Tuck's background:

Tuck suffered debilitating injuries in the 1980s when his parachute failed to open during a jump, and those injuries were exacerbated by a car crash in 1990, Hiatt said. He said Tuck was using marijuana to treat his chronic pain. In 2001, while he was living in McKinleyville, Calif., his marijuana operation was raided for the second time. He fled to British Columbia to avoid prosecution but asylum was denied. Last Friday, he checked himself into a Vancouver hospital for prostate problems, and it was there that he was arrested.

A friend was there when he was arrested:

"I would not believe it unless I had seen it," Cowan said. "They sent people in to arrest him while he was on a gurney. They took him out of the hospital in handcuffs, put him in an SUV, and drove him to the border."

Though Tuck has taken morphine - as prescribed by doctors - for about 16 years to help with his pain, he was given no painkiller or treatment at the jail other than ibuprofen, Hiatt said. Tuck appeared emaciated in court, and Hiatt said he had been sick from morphine withdrawal.

America. Prison Nation.

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    An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust | 16 comments (16 topical)
    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#1)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Deserter snorts coke: President / minor deity. Veteran smokes pot: Criminal.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#2)
    by soccerdad on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    The arrest is stupid, the tratment of him appears criminal. For those who can't understand how the abuse and torture in Iraq came about need to consider these kinds of incidents. There is some fundamendatal defect in the moral make up of a good number of our citizens that enables them to mistreat other humans like this. A sure money making propsition, a TV series entitled "Goons gone wild". It would be a smash hit.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Didn't anyone learn anything from the case where the arrestee died in DC last year from lack of proper treatment and what scarshapedstar said

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    ps Does this guy have a defense fund I'd like to send some money

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#5)
    by SeeEmDee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    A veteran. An Airborne trooper. A man willing to give his life for his country...is treated this way at the behest of that same country...for using cannabis to ameliorate the condition of his miserable existence. (You can't call it a 'life'; at least, I can't.) He hasn't killed anyone. He hasn't hurt anyone. He hasn't molested any kids. He hasn't stolen billions from old people's pension funds. He hasn't lied a country into an insane foreign military adventure and killed scores of thousands, some of those thousands his own, in the process. But what does he get? Misery, de facto torture, and other inhumane treatment by the biiiiig, baaaaaadaaaaaas drug warriors. He may well die in their care, just as that guy Magbie did in the DC jail. Killed by people who say they want to 'save you' from illegal drugs. The Inquisition couldn't get more twisted than this. They wanted to 'save' people, too. They did it by burning you at the stake, gouging eyes out, drowning you, hot pokers in the nuts, etc. But we're more advanced as a society, aren't we? We just allow their urinary catheters to get infected so they die in agony compounded by opiate withdrawl. I can just hear it now: "We didn't kill him! He was a sicko drug addict, anyway! We don't need that kind of trash polluting our children! Better that he died that lived and spread his gospel of medical marijuana to our children! We can't have that in 'Murikah!" Witness the true face of the War on Drugs in all it's glory. Pastor Niemoller must be shaking his head in the Afterlife over this...

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#6)
    by jen on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the technical stuff. Don't people have to pay attention to judges orders?

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#8)
    by roger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    As a para vet with a bad back (yes, from a bad jump), this scares the Cr*p out of me

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Jen: My memory of how this typically works in federal court is that the lawyer requests that the judge recommend to the Marshalls' Service that the prisoner get X, Y, or Z and then the judge says, o.k., I'll instruct them accordingly. I imagine the judge's clerks then pass these instructions along by telephone or in a letter. I don't think this has the same status as a signed court order, and even if it did, the Marshalls would just say "oops!" The relationship between the court and the marshalls is pretty cozy - the judges' security detail is from the marshalls' service, after all.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#10)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Here’s your strong central government folks; they gotta come after you before you all wake up? At least there is the legislative solution.
    “let them eat cake” - Justice Stevens
    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#11)
    by Al on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    It's outrageous all right, but what is also outrageous is that the Canadian authorities apparently actively participated in this. I'm getting fed up with stories about Canadian police falling over themselves to assist American authorities in incredible acts of injustice. Maher Arar comes to mind.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#12)
    by peacrevol on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    DAYYUUUUUUM. This should be made public on every medium so that perhaps our country might get an idea of how rediculous and out of control the "war on drugs" has gotten. But you know, I think most people dont understand marijuana b/c of the lies they were taught about it in school. To most people they probably think this is just another pothead looking for an exuse to grow some weed. They dont know the medicinal benefits b/c they were taught about the "out of control reefer heads" that commit all kinds of lude acts b/c they are high on pot. We've got to stop the propaganda, teach the truth and uncover the injustices or we'll never have a truly civilized society.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#13)
    by SeeEmDee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Looks like the Canucks are losing their sovereignty: US Police Invading Canada? In Spring of 2004, a member of the RCMP is stopped and illegally searched by a Texas State Trooper...in Canada. And of course, we have the spectacle of the RCMP rolling over and wetting itself on the command of the US DEA with the Emery Incident. Now this. Does the word 'craven' come to mind? Because it should. The conduct of the Austrian police was probably very similar in the time just before Hitler's anschluss temporarily subsumed Austrian sovereignty: toadying to the whims of their Nazi colleagues. Maybe this is why the top Canadian officer position at NORAD was eliminated; no real need for the fiction, anymore, perhaps? Welcome to the USA, Canada! Now, pull down that flag and assume the position.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#14)
    by SeeEmDee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Slight correction: the cop who was stopped by the Texan was not RCMP but a Vancouver city officer. But the main point remains the same; Canada looks like it is rapidly becoming what many of her people don't want her to be: the 51st State.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#15)
    by Johnny on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    Well... At least he wasn't looking at pornography while toking up, he may very well have been shot to death.

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:59 PM EST
    He has been released to seek medical care. Doctor shopping not just for Rush Limbaugh now a police tactic

    Re: An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:59 PM EST
    And here I thought Canada had better sensibilities... Never would have thought Canadian authorites would be so brutal to someone. Sorry. The right whingers managed to fool the British Columbians into thinking their "Liberal" Premier is really a liberal.

    An Outrageous Medical Pot Bust | 16 comments (16 topical)