"As Harsanyi explains, it's easy to get lost in the details of this case. What's quite clear is that Branson is a very sick man. He isn't and wasn't selling marijuana. At least two doctors feel he needs it. So his apparent crime was to trust the word of a doctor who due to federal law, not state law, couldn't give him her prescription in writing. For this, and for a measly 12 plants, the state of Colorado wants to send him to prison, and possibly kill him."
Via the Denver Post:
Sometimes there's a fine line between consent and coercion.
Jack Branson learned that lesson the hard way in October 2004 when officers from the North Metro Drug Task Force knocked on his door.
Would Branson give consent to these officers to conduct a warrantless search of his home in Thornton?
Well, of course he would consent - especially after, as Branson tells it, the dozen or so armed cops explained, in detail, the needless tragedies that would befall his home if they were forced to go through the trouble of returning with a warrant.
In they went.
The police, naturally, knew exactly what they were looking for and quickly seized about a dozen marijuana plants Branson was growing in the backyard.
Charged with felony cultivation and possession with intent to distribute, the 38-year-old Branson, who is in a 20-year fight with HIV, is now facing a maximum six years in prison.
Branson, who had no previous criminal record, claims that a physician named Dr. Cynthia Firnhaber verbally recommended medical marijuana to him in 2002 to help ease his pain.
"That or pick out a hospice which you'd like to die in," Branson alleges the doctor told him.
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