Court Rulings

Maine marijuana activist Don Christen is getting ready to do eight months behind bars after the state Supreme Court rejected his appeal in a marijuana cultivation case where he argued he was growing for patients.

Cops who confiscate legally permitted marijuana or plants from patients and growers in California could pay out the nose for their violations of the constitution, a California appeals court has ruled in the first decision of its kind. That just might rein in some of those renegade, recalcitrant departments who want to ignore a law they don't like.

There has been some concern that the US Supreme Court would let an Arizona school district get away with strip-searching a junior high school girl while looking for some ibuprofen tablets. It didn't.

Explicitly acknowledging the medicinal use of the herb, the Croatian Supreme Court has thrown out marijuana possession charges against a war veteran who used it to treat PTSD.

In its first review of Canada's asset forfeiture laws, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that judges must look at the circumstances of each case in deciding whether full, partial or no forfeiture orders should be issued. In the US, prosecutors make forfeiture decisions.

A federal law that makes it a felony to use a communication device to sell drugs cannot be used against personal use drug buyers, the US Supreme Court ruled this week.

Pusher Street may be history, but the residents of Copenhagen's Christiania are still fighting for their right to remain. They lost a court battle this week, but the end is not here yet for the countercultural enclave.

Bryan Epis, one of a handful of people convicted in federal court for supplying medical marijuana under California's Proposition 215, is facing 10 years in prison. A three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that should stick, but an appeal is pending.

It's getting harder and harder to get prosecuted for drug possession in Argentina. The Argentine courts' slow drift toward decriminalization continued this week.

By refusing to hear a government appeal of two lower court decisions, Canada's Supreme Court has ended the government monopoly on the medical marijuana supply and opened the way for multi-patient grows.