Late last week, 53-year-old Michigan medical marijuana patient Jerry Duval received a Justice Department order to surrender to federal authorities on June 11thto begin serving a 10-year prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, Ohio. Although Duval is a kidney-pancreas transplant patient with coronary artery disease and a strict medication regimen, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) ignored the recommendation of District Judge David M. Lawson at sentencing, that Duval be “placed in a Federal Medical Center or other facility deemed to be appropriate in consideration of the Defendant’s medical needs.”
“It’s bad enough that we’re throwing our frail and sick into federal prison with no evidence that they violated state medical marijuana laws,” said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA). “But to deny those patients the most basic medical needs in prison is beyond shameful.” The controversy over the BOP failure to place Duval in a medical facility comes less than year after Montana medical marijuana patient Richard Flor died in federal detention last August while serving a 5-year sentence for a similar conviction. The Justice Department also never provided evidence at any point that Flor had violated Montana’s medical marijuana law.
The article goes on to blame the Obama administration. Who do I blame? All of them.