FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 17, 2008
CONTACT: Whitney Potter, ACLU of New Mexico, (505) 266-5915 x1003 or 507-9898
CARLSBARD – A paraplegic man is suing Eddy County Sheriff's Deputies for seizing marijuana plants and equipment to grow marijuana, which he uses to control pain resulting from a spinal cord injury.  Leonard French received a license to cultivate and use small quantities of marijuana for medicinal purposes from the State of New Mexico under the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, which represents French, says the deputies' actions violated not only that law, but also state forfeiture laws and a constitutional prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
"The New Mexico state legislature, in its wisdom, passed the Compassionate Use Act after carefully considering the benefits the drug provides for people who suffer from uncontrollable pain, and weighing those benefits against the way federal law considers cannabis,” said Peter Simonson, ACLU Executive Director.  “With their actions against Mr. French, Eddy County officials thwarted that humane, sensible law, probably for no other reason than that they believed federal law empowered them to do so."
On September 4, 2007, at least four Eddy County deputies, acting as members of the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force, arrived at French's home in Malaga, New Mexico and announced, "We're here about the marijuana."  Thinking that the deputies had arrived to check his compliance with the compassionate use law, French presented the deputies with his state license to grow marijuana, then showed them his hydroponic equipment, including two small marijuana plants and three dead sprouts.  The deputies seized the equipment and plants, and later turned them over to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.  French has not been charged with any violations of federal drug laws.
A physician prescribed marijuana for French after other medications lost their effectiveness in controlling pain and severe muscle spasms stemming from a 1987 motorcycle accident.
Simonson said, "With the Compassionate Use Act, New Mexico embarked on an innovative project to help people who suffer from painful conditions like Mr. French's.  The law cannot succeed if the threat of arrest by county and local law enforcement hangs over participants in the program.  With this lawsuit, we hope to clear the way for the State to implement a sensible, conservative program to apply a drug that traditionally has been considered illicit for constructive purposes."
The ACLU’s complaint is available online at: https://www.aclu-nm.org/PDF/French_1_17_08.pdf
For more information about the national ACLU Drug Law Reform Project, go to: http://aclu.org/drugpolicy/index.html

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Related Documents:

French Complaint

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14-Feb-2008 Affidavit

15-Feb-2008 Press Release

ACLU Drug Law Reform Project

Group Calls Action Unconstitutional and Discriminatory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 15, 2008
CONTACT: Whitney Potter, ACLU of New Mexico, (505) 266-5915 x1003 or 507-9898; [email protected] or Rachel Myers, national ACLU, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; [email protected]
ALBUQUERQUE - The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit in federal court today on behalf of several New Mexico residents and advocacy organizations who were made to stand more than 150 yards away from the site of a fundraiser being attended by the president as they peacefully protested the views of the administration, while a group of people expressing support for President Bush were allowed to stand only a few feet from the fundraiser site.
“People who disagree with the president have as much a right to be heard as those who wish to praise him," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU.  “The unequal treatment of the ACLU’s clients violates their constitutional right to free speech.”
On August 27, 2007, President Bush was in New Mexico to attend a fundraiser for Senator Pete Domenici at the home of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque Mayor Larry Abraham. In anticipation of the presidential motorcade, several individuals, including the ACLU’s clients, gathered along the street leading to the mayor’s house holding signs expressing their disapproval of the Iraq War.
According to the ACLU’s lawsuit, law enforcement officials forced the peaceful protestors to stand 150 yards away from the motorcade route, on the opposite end of the street from where the president would arrive, where they were blocked from the president’s view by a wall of parked police cars and officers on horseback. A group of people holding a banner reading “God Bless George Bush! We Pray for You!” was allowed to stand only a few feet from the fundraiser site, in plain view of the motorcade.
“Law enforcement officers gave Bush supporters front row seats and made those who disagreed with the president stand behind a wall of cars and horses,” said Peter Simonson, ACLU of New Mexico Executive Director. “Officials went to great lengths to shield the president from viewing the people who disagreed with him, which just isn’t how a free society should operate.”
The New Mexico lawsuit comes in the midst of an ongoing challenge by the ACLU to a White House policy that unlawfully excludes individuals perceived to be critical of the administration from public events where President Bush is present. The policy is laid out in the official Presidential Advance Manual, which includes a section called “Preparing for Demonstrators.”  In that section, the manual directs members of the presidential advance team working at the site of a presidential appearance to “work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.”
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jeanne Pahls, Rebecca Wilson, Alma Rosa Silva Banuelos, Carter Bundy, Merimee Moffitt, Laura Lawrence, Stuart T. “Terry” Riley, Mary Lou “Mitzi” Kraft, Jason Call, and the organizations Stop the War Machine and CODEPINK Women for Peace, Albuquerque chapter.
Attorneys in the lawsuit are Catherine Crump, Chris Hansen and Josh Hsu of the national ACLU and George Bach of the ACLU of New Mexico.
The ACLU’s complaint is available online at:www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/33653lgl20080115.html
For more information about the ACLU’s work to protect free speech at presidential events, go to: www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/protest_president.html

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Related Documents

Protest Complaint

More info about the ACLU's work to protect free speech at presidential events.

Group Calls U.S. Report to U.N. a Whitewash

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2007
CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU (212) 549-2582 or (212) 549-2666;[email protected] or Whitney Potter, ACLU of New Mexico (505) 266-5915 ext. 1003 or (505) 507-9898
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today released a comprehensive analysis of the pervasive institutionalized, systemic and structural racism in America. The report, Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice, is a response to the U.S. report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released earlier this year. The U.S. report, which the ACLU called a “whitewash,” swept under the rug the dramatic effects of widespread racial and ethnic discrimination in this country.
“The America we believe in is one where people are treated fairly regardless of their race and ethnicity. But unfortunately, the U.S. government is not living up to our ideals,” said Dennis Parker, Director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “We will continue to press this administration to pursue wide-ranging and rigorous measures to enforce this treaty and to end racial discrimination.”
The U.S. government submitted its report in April to the CERD committee, an independent group of internationally recognized human rights experts that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. All levels of the U.S. government are required to comply with the treaty’s provisions, which require countries to review national, state and local policies and to amend or repeal laws and regulations that create or perpetuate racial discrimination. The treaty also encourages countries to take positive measures, including affirmative action, to redress racial inequalities.
In its “shadow report” to the U.N., compiled jointly by the ACLU’s Human Rights and Racial Justice Programs and based on information provided by the ACLU affiliates in more than 20 states, the ACLU documents the U.S. government’s failure to fully comply with CERD in numerous substantive areas affecting racial and ethnic minorities. The report closely examines policies and practices at the federal, state and local levels which place a disproportionate burden on those most vulnerable in society – including women, children, incarcerated persons and immigrants and non-citizens.
Since its ratification, U.S. reporting on compliance has been inadequate, and this most recent report is no exception – it is a combination of two overdue reports spanning the years 2000-2006. The government’s report is riddled with misrepresentations and inaccuracies and fails to honestly assess the ways in which racial and ethnic discrimination and inequality persist.
The ACLU’s report details the setbacks in the promotion of racial and ethnic equality, including the government’s attack on affirmative action and the courts’ curtailment of civil rights and remedies for discrimination. The ACLU report finds that discrimination in America permeates education, employment, the treatment of migrants and immigrants, law enforcement, access to justice for juveniles and adults, court proceedings, detention and incarceration, the death penalty, and the many collateral consequences of incarceration including the loss of political rights.
The ACLU report also criticizes major shortcomings in the U.S. government’s report including: a minor mention of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (and only in the housing discrimination context) and a total omission of the “school to prison pipeline” phenomenon, which involves the overzealous funneling of students of color out of classrooms and into the criminal justice system. The report also suffers from a complete lack of information on the dramatic increase in hate crimes and the escalating problem of police brutality.
The ACLU report examines human rights violations that took place before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, a crisis that exposed to the world the persistence of racial and economic inequalities in America, and their impact on African-American and other minority communities. It also documents the epidemic of minorities being subjected to racial profiling, a practice most often associated with African-Americans and Latinos, but one which also affects other minority communities, and since 9/11, has increasingly been directed at Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians.
In addition, the report highlights the government’s failure to protect immigrants and non-citizens, and particularly low-wage workers, from racially discriminatory policies and acts like governmental crackdowns and workplace raids.
Despite the treaty’s clear requirement to provide state-level information, the U.S. government’s report comprehensively reports on only four states – Oregon, South Carolina, New Mexico and Illinois – and fails to provide adequate information on some of the most racially diverse states such as California, Texas, New York and  Florida, or on the Gulf Coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
December 10th is celebrated worldwide as International Human Rights Day. Today the ACLU and many of its affiliates across the country will hold events as part of the ACLU’s National Day of Action Against Racial Discrimination.
A copy of the ACLU’s report on the U.S. government’s report to CERD can be found online at: http://www.aclu.org/cerd
More information on the ACLU’s Human Rights Program can be found online at: www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/30079pub20070612.html
More information on the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program can be found online at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice/index.html

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