Lawsuits Announced to Place Injunction on and Overturn Washington State’s Senate Bill 5052
A team of attorneys will soon file a series of lawsuits to place an injunction on, and overturn Washington State’s Senate Bill 5052, a recently signed law that will drastically reduce the rights of medical cannabis patients in the state while closing dispensaries and establishing an illegal patient registry.
Signed by Governor Jay Inslee in April, Senate Bill 5052 – which takes full effect in July, 2016 – will drastically reduce the amount of cannabis patients can possess and cultivate, making felons out of those who possess currently allowable limits. The measure will also lead to the closure of nearly every medical cannabis dispensary in the state, and will establish an illegal patient registry that is in clear violation of federal HIPAA laws.
The lawsuits will seek to place an immediate injunction on the new law, preventing it from taking effect while the group works to overturn it permanently.
The group of renowned attorneys who will be working on the lawsuits include Sensible Washington co-founders and longtime criminal defense attorneys Douglas Hiatt and Jeffrey Steinborn (who have 70 years combined legal experience), and attorney Aaron Pelley of Pelley Law LLC, among others.
Hiatt tells us that the group will be filing two to three separate lawsuits that will seek to fully dismantle the new law, in order to protect the rights that patients currently have, and to prevent the state from establishing the patient database.
They group plans to make a formal announcement in the coming days.
– TheJointBlog
Dennis
Over turn 5052 !!
Annette
I’ve strongly believed from the first this was illegal as hell for them to do or try to do – medical patients are NOT recreation party hearty, they are ill & wounded people; they have HIPPA rights!
Inslee is a complete & total white trash idiot from Yakimeth & shouldn’t be running the state of WA!
His lackies/minions over at the Liquor Control Board are just as bad or perhaps even worse
Destroying historic, compassionate RCW69 was an illegal travesty, in my opinon & my initial & lasting gut feeling/thoughts have been from day one, “WE NEED A CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT TO REMIND THESE BASTARDS THEY’RE NOT! ABOVE THE LAW! HIPPA WILL BE HONORED, AS WELL AS OTHER PATIENT RIGHTS!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀
Deb
*HIPAA
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. There is only one “P” (Portability).
aunty neighbor
Unfortunately I worry about privacy being an issue. We as patients have been signing in and out of collectives and waiving our right to privacy. However, that being said, I have never FORMALLY WAIVED my roght, only an implied waiver exists. Lastly, the harm to patients is REAL. Find a way to get this overturned, Please!
#noLCBinMYthc #myDisabiltyIsNOTrecreational
kathy
,,,I agree mostly with what Annette said except that as a long time resident I take offence to her term “Yakimeth”,,,clearly,,,it is known as “Crackima”,,,,,
Laura
Thank you Thank you Thank you
madnesssssss
About damn time. They can still have it. They grew to much. Ounce is nothing to sneeze at. the medical cards really mean nothing. I can’t count so many people that have them and never needed them. they sold them in bulk for only $200 per person. It was like a conveyer belt in alot of offices. They didn’t do real test. Just a questionnaire.
Anonymous
Madnesss
I think you’re confused. This lawsuit is about protecting medical marijuana, keeping dispensaries open, and increasing medical marijuana patients rights. Not the opposite. $200 authorizations ? I’m a Being an Alaskan native /longtime Seattle Resident I’ve never heard of anyone here paying that for a medical authorization. Conveyor belt ? You must have either been drinking I-502/ Kool-Aid, or, you have some skin in that game. You’re correct to be against alleged fraud and mis-representation. However, You apparently have the wrong people in your sights. Patients are sick and worried about their health under the onerous State law 5052.
Moirraine
The guy didn’t even read a single thing and then jumped into the fray with a perception that is so sideways and wrong it’s baffling.
calicorock
Madnessss :
With all due respect. This Seattle Resident , a disabled, Washington medical marijuana patient, patients rights activist, has never, EVER seen nor heard about $200 paid for any medical marijuana authorizations, Fraudulently delivered via to the healthy population on a conveyor-belt ? Not sure where you actually live, but it’s certainly not Washington.
Rebecca
I would like to help. What can I do?
Moirraine
Contribute anything you can to the official gofundme and then call the Governor every single week until he recinds his illegal signing of 502 with any provisions against our law.
Here is the State Constitution – they broke the law in not even putting true intent into the law’s NAME. It’s THAT simple
http://leg.wa.gov/LawsAndAgencyRules/pages/constitution.aspx
Section II
Article 19
BILL TO CONTAIN ONE SUBJECT. No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.
IF our LEADERS can’t READ and OBEY the Constitution nor their OATHS OF OFFICE to protect same, they are ILLEGALLY PASSING LAWS! MANY OF THEM! NOT just ONE.
Kim
At this point HIPA becomes just another fantasy, the state cares about what big business wants and they sure do not want citizens to be in control of any medication, there’s no money in it for them. Big business runs Washington state and our country, WE you and I have allowed it to happen and most cannot even be bothered to stay informed let alone stand up and say enough. If this group of attorneys manages to stop 5052 every patient in this state should kiss their feet for the bail out.
g
Now that corporations can donate unlimited money to political campaigns, no, we did not do this. Money did this. Many are informed, many protested 5052, signed petitions, wrote letters to Inslee, etc. with pretty much no response from the state. If they can break 5052, kiss their feet indeed!
calicorock
I thought a lawsuit may eventually be filed by a disabled medical patient under provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act ( ADA). Then again, I’m not a lawyer but thankful to these compassionate attorney’s.
Moirraine
Compassionate lawyers?
$100,000 to do what is right and legal?
We are PAYING to enforce our own laws? How INSANE is THAT?!
Jonny void
People need to get over there dogma if science said smoking plastic would heal everything I would except it because I have no emotional dogmas Lying to me. Fallow science fallow logic. Then ban alcohol for killing people weed has killed no one.
Todd@Addiction Solutions
Is there a way can (financially I suppose) support this effort and if so, how do we do it? That new law needs to be overturned!!!
Brian
Their names are in the post. Look em up and call them.
DJ
There’s a gofundme for this! http://www.gofundme.com/saveaccesswa
Anonymous
Can we please stop voting for dicks like, Inslee?
Charles
time to take back the state. a march on olympia is in order.
kyle
this is such a stupid joke. they are puttig way to much effort into something that helps people instead of harm them like the chemicals the doctors try to prescribe us. some of us cant take pills so we look to the alternative. if they are gonna ban weed then why the fuck is alcohol legal?
usarmyretired
It’s time to use the POWER OF THE VOTE and get these politicians who are not supporting us out!
Moirraine
As THE person who alerted people to the illegality of the actions taken against medical cannabis, I am disgusted to see that it took over A YEAR for any media to LISTEN.
.
I am far more disgusted that the “medical community” is so lazy and apathetic that it sat there and waited and waited and WAITED until, one year from now, we will ALL be pushed into a corner WITHOUT our protections from OUR law that was passed BY THE PEOPLE in 1998.
STOP sitting there! CALL your Governor and ASK him why he signed a law, 502, with ALL it’s OTHER regulations, ILLEGALLY against our STATE Constitution.
Your CONSTITUTION is our protection and you BETTER start realizing that your LEADERS WERE TOLD AND THEY DID NOT CARE NOR WOULD THEY LISTEN WHEN TOLD THEY WERE BREAKING THE LAW TO A PERSON!
ALL who signed that bill did so ILLEGALLY.
STOP VOTING FOR PEOPLE AND START VOTING ON PRINCIPLE AND ACTIONS!
CALL the flipping Governor and TELL him he BROKE FAITH WITH US AND BROKE OUR MOST SACRED STATE LAW!
calicorock
I can’t wait to watch this entire mess (SB 5052) unravel in a court of law.In the meantime. voter’s in Washington need to find a way to unseat Senator Anne River’s from her cozy gerrymandered Senate seat. She thinks shes undefeatable, ensconced in her little enclave of like-minded right-wing, cannabis hating Fascists . VOTE !
The idiot yokel Republican Senator that orchestrated the repeal of Washington’s 17 year old, voter approved MMJ law, replacing it with NOTHING needs to be impeached. Sen. Anne River’s REPUBLICAN placed the heavy burden of a 37.9 % excise tax (on top of the 9% sales tax) onto dying cancer and ALS patients.
It takes a person as cold as pack ice, lacking compassion, or a soul to do something as greedy and evil as this to the dying. Btw, Oregon’s medical law charges ZERO (()%) tax upon its sick and dying citizens. California won’t either. Washington’s the only State this greedy.
Moirraine
HIPAA laws are also going to be broken in a major way – so, now we have TWO laws that were broken by the CLUELESS Congress, and BOY did we tell them what they were doing was illegal.
Did they listen?
HA!
They SHUT US OUT!
The main person on the committee, Rivers, would not even ALLOW me to talk to her at all!
You want to know who is running your state?
NO ONE!
They are LYING about what they are doing, how they are spending money and THEN breaking FEDERAL and STATE laws in the process while WE sit here and take it over and over and over.
It’s time you woke up, talked to every single person you know, stop watching TV and spending your time being couch locked BECAUSE ONE YEAR FROM NOW IT ALL GOES TO HELL – NO good oils, BACK underground for many of us because we can’t POSSIBLY afford THREE TIMES what we are paying NOW.
WAKE THE FREAK UP!
CALL THE GOVERNOR! ENCOURAGE EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO CARES ABOUT YOU TO CALL!
Wildflower81b
Yes there are places that charge as much as $200 for a permit…in Washington State, King County. I’ve been hysterical for over a year now. I’m ready to go sit on the capital steps or something. It’s been like not many people are concerned. Wait until they see the crap from the 502 stores! Tiny, stemy buds. When in fact you know what the specific strain should look like. Percentages are off. Edibles are not dosed for medical. Do they honestly think 10 mg is going to help severe muscle spasms/contractures.
sammy
I have been seriously looking to form an awesome, subtle, legal, and hopefully EFFECTIVE group who would be willing to participate, but you are the first choice I’ve heard along with mine about doing this…I have a fantastic idea, come from a long generation of demonstrators (though it’s been decades, lol) this is truly a legit cause. Look me up on MY web sight and shoot me an e mail…let’s see how many others we can get…how serious, are we, folks? I mean, this is HUGE!! strangebudz.com MEDICAL AND LICENSES ONLY PLEASE!!
calicorock
Wildflower81b :
Olympia’s a greedy place full of rednecks and hicks because people in Washington don’t vote during midterm elections. So we get Senator’s like Republican Senator Anne River’s regulating medical marijuana. Have you ever checked out where this clowns from ? She’s from , La Center WA. a village of less than 2000 people, a wealthy enclave of primarily Republican, I’ve got mine cannabis banning greed-heads, just like her.
Mervin
It is a great initiative by government. Good to see such move.
Ray
You’ve got my signature on a petition for ending 502. The Corporate foreign state of WA is attempting to deprive people who are in desperate need of herbal medicine, deprive people of rights secured, deprive people of the freedom to choose, deprive lawful citizens of Constitutional bill of rights amendments designed by the founding fathers to stop stealthy encroachment and are attempting to usurp the authority of the people to be independent of the state and the foreign law.