MEDICAL MARIJUANA: Judge Rules It’s Not A ‘Medical Necessity’

      Selling marijuana to a terminally ill man is not a "medical necessity," an Orange Country Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. The Los Angeles Times reports that as a result, the case, the People vs. David Lee Herrick "will no longer be the first local test" of Proposition 215. The jury, set for selection Monday, will now only decide "whether Herrick's acceptance of cash 'donations' in exchange for marijuana for medicinal use amounts to the illegal distribution of the drug." Deputy Public Defender Sharon Petrosino said, "The key issue for a test case is now dead." Judge William Froeberg, the Times notes, had already ruled that Proposition 215 "did not legalize sales, transportation or possession for sales." Herrick, a member of a Garden Grove-based cannabis club, argued that he acted under a "medical necessity" to provide marijuana to a terminally ill man to prolong his life. Froeberg ruled the sale was something Herrick did "for his own purposes." He said, "There are reasonable alternatives. He does not need to set up a community enterprise to provide it." Petrosino said, "I think (the judge) was just plain wrong on the medical necessity. I think he held us to too high a standard" (Hernandez, 5/8).