Toronto man loses his driver’s license after a medical doctor said his daily cannabis use would affect his ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.
A Toronto man lost his Ontario driver’s licence after admitting to a doctor he smokes marijuana on a daily basis.
The man, age 53, provided part of his medical file and other information to Global News for examination but asked not to be publicly identified out of concern for his employment.
Lost Your License Because You Are A Medical Marijuana Patient? Contact Komorn Law Immediately to secure your rights… 800-656-3557.
Last October, the man was referred to Dr. Peter Phua, a medical doctor who works in a psychotherapy clinic.
He was seeking help with anxiety and claustrophobia, an extreme fear of confined places.
The man says he was honest and upfront about his lifetime use of marijuana, which by mid-month was legally obtainable in Canada. He said he has always been truthful with physicians.
“He’s a doctor, I thought I could trust him. If you can’t trust your doctor who can you trust?” he said.
Phua is listed as a family physician in the public record of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
At the initial meeting, the man says he told Phua he sometimes smokes five small joints in a day, usually mixed on a 50-50 basis with tobacco.
“I told him I don’t smoke and drive,” he said, explaining he owns his own business, has several employees, and is conscientious about his cannabis consumption.
He suffers from Crohn’s Disease and has survived two forms of cancer. He says marijuana helps him relax.
In the first meeting, the man said Phua warned him he could have his driver’s licence revoked over his marijuana use, but wouldn’t.
At a second meeting with the doctor about a week later, he says Phua repeated his warning and the assurance he wouldn’t report him.
“Twice he threatened, twice he said he would not, and then he did,” the man said.
A week after the second meeting, the man got a phone call from Phua, who announced he was contacting the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario to have his driver’s licence revoked.
“It was unreal, it sucked the air out of me,” he told Global News.
On Oct. 15, the man received a notice of suspension of driver’s licence from the ministry, announcing his driving privileges would be revoked as of Oct. 22.
The letter cited “evidence of medical condition that would affect your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle” as the reason.
“Stop driving. You must not drive while you are suspended,” the letter warned.
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By now, the man had contacted the College of Physicians and Surgeons to file a complaint against the doctor. The College is investigating whether Phua violated the man’s privacy and told the man “he will lie to MTO to get Mr. X’s driver’s licence suspended”, allegations which have not been established by the medical regulator.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons did not reply to a call for comment, nor did Phua.
The man also applied to appeal the decision by the MTO. He submitted medical evidence from a gastroenterologist who had treated him for several years.
“To my knowledge, there is no drug dependent history of impairment,” the doctor wrote, in support of the man’s licence reinstatement.
After submitting forms and medical advice, the man got good news.
“I got my licence back in two weeks. They (ministry staff) said it was a miracle,” the man said.
Medical professionals are obligated to inform the ministry about someone’s medical situation in certain circumstances.
According to MTO regulations, the “goal of the medical reporting program is to protect the public from individuals who have a medical condition that may make it unsafe to drive.”
Under section 203 of the Highway Traffic Act, there are now mandatory reporting requirements for high-risk medical conditions, vision conditions and functional impairments that make it dangerous for a person to drive.
The rules now apply to physicians, optometrists and nurse practitioners.
“Included in the mandatory high-risk conditions/impairments is uncontrolled substance use disorders. Physicians and nurse practitioners are required to report any patient who has a diagnosis of an uncontrolled substance use disorder, excluding caffeine and nicotine, and the person is non-compliant with treatment recommendations.”
But the man whose licence was suspended for marijuana use said he was not given any treatment recommendations or diagnosis by Phua.
According to the ministry, someone could also lose driving privileges for excessive consumption of alcohol, even if the patient does not drive while impaired.
“Each case is reviewed on an individual basis in the context of regulatory requirements and national medical standards,” said a ministry spokesperson.
Relieved that his licence has been returned, the man told Global News he’s concerned for other people who consume marijuana responsibly, hold driver’s licences and expect to be able to speak frankly with their doctor about cannabis use.
“It’s going to be a big problem. You want to trust a doctor. But if they suspend your licence, I don’t know.”
The state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) announced medical marijuana sold at a shop in Lansing has been recalled because it’s contaminated with potentially deadly bacteria.
Tests on four types of marijuana sold at HG Lansing came back positive for E. coli, Salmonella, coliform and chemical residue:
Citrix
1A4050100000F3D000000009
(E. coli and Salmonella)
Green Crack
1A4050100000F3D000000008
(chemical residue and bile-tolerant gram-negative bacteria, E. coli, Salmonella and total coliforms)
Oreoz
1A4050100000F3D000000023
(chemical residue and E. coli and Salmonella)
HG Lansing, on Oakland Avenue, must notify customers who bought the recalled marijuana. It was sold between December 27 and December 30 of 2017. The state says customers should return it to the store for proper disposal.
Is Alex Berenson Just Trolling Us With His Anti-Marijuana Book
From Rolling Stone
A former ‘New York Times’ journalist wrote about a “hidden epidemic” cause by pot — but it seems he got the science wrong
In the past week, there’s been a flurry of media coverage around a new book called Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. One of the main points is that legalization is a terrible idea, because legal pot is already causing more people to become schizophrenic and psychotic, and people who are schizophrenic and psychotic are more likely to commit violent crimes.
Alex Berenson, the book’s author — a former journalist who spent the past decade or so writing mysteries and thriller novels — landed plum op-eds in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He appeared on Fox and Friends and Tucker Carlson Tonight. And the pop-psych theorist Malcolm Gladwell wrote an entire New Yorker article repeating and promoting the book’s thesis.
And yet, this theory is deeply flawed. After five years of extensive reporting on the cannabis industry, it seems pretty clear that weed itself isn’t that dangerous — sure, it can be abused like any drug, but it’s weed’s illegality, especially the illegality of the supply chain, that poses a far greater public safety threat. So hearing Berenson promote these distorted, dog-whistle conclusions, it left me with one question: is he trolling us? Does he genuinely believe that the full legalization of marijuana is going to cause a significant rise in murders, assaults and mental illness — or is he just assuming a contrarian position to scare people into buying his book?
A really quick peek into the coming 2019 Year of Marijuana and Michigan.
Prop 1, along with the new State and Federal hemp legislation and the MMFLA, will fundamentally reconfigure the police encounter.
The smell or mere presence of cannabis can no longer constitute reasonable suspicion to stop or probable cause to raid.
Previous to Prop 1 of 2018 being enacted, for the past 30 years, 40 % of the criminal call for both district courts and circuit courts throughout the State were for marijuana possession cases.
These cases should dramatically decrease or end, as they have in Colorado , Washington and other legalized states.
Likewise it should follow that the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Department (The State Lab) work load that devours 40 percent of its budget on marijuana should dramatically be reduced and allow that department to focus on the untested rape kits that remain on the shelves all across Michigan.
Opportunities
Prop 1, along with the new hemp legislation should set the stage for the renaissance of an entirely new multi-million dollar industry right here in Michigan.
There is no question that this new law should create opportunities for thousands of jobs that include both farming and manufacturing.
The now:
Currently, prosecutors are continuing to prosecute marijuana crimes that occurred before legalization.
The new law is not retroactive, prosecutors have discretion to proceed or drop cases.
What happens when it comes to sentencing, how would the judge proceed to sentence someone for a crime that is legal now?
Concerns that still remain
With the legislature still made up of older people and prohibitionists, newly crafted prohibitionist bills will be passed by the legislature in 2019.
A Scientific Fact?
Science will continue to show no driving influence with marijuana, but a nanogram limit maybe imposed by the prohibitionists, despite zero science to support such a finding.
The MSP roadside testing pilot program has finished its testing, and a report is due out soon.
The Struggle is Far From Over
Medical marihuana will be under attack in 2019 from the prohibitionists who thought “medical marijuana” was a sham all along.
We must continue to be steadfast in defending the MMMA for both patients and especially for the caregivers. This past year has taught us that the state regulated MMFLA system cannot exist without caregivers.
Case Dismissed…Not Just Yet
In speaking with other attorneys and firms, not a single case has been dismissed due to legalization. The brownie case is still active and is up for a hearing in Oakland County Courts in January 2019.
The butter case is still active, most recently the prosecutor filed an application to appeal the Mich Supreme Court 2017 opinion ruling that 4 am was unconstitutional for a knock and talk.
The Mansour case, where the Court of Appeals opinion declared all unusable (drying) marijuana to be illegal to possess, is pending appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court.
Keep an Eye on History
Our community must observe the history of Colorado and Washington to succeed in 2019. We must study Colorado and Washington’s history so we will not repeat the same mistakes here in Michigan.
We can learn a lot about taxes, delivery services, social use bar type lounges and enforcement policy on state licensed businesses.
Social Clubs
Social Clubs / smoke lounges will be a big topic in 2019, for the people who cannot smoke at home, let’s hope that any confusion on this topic is resolved with civility and not the military type raids that has been the calling card of law of enforcement regarding medical marihuana.
2019 is Here
2019 will be the year of the cannabis green rush. There will be winners and losers, my only hope is that these outcomes are determined from the organic market place ( the best business, the best products, the best operators) and not from the inept licensing board that has interfered with the development of the states regulated system.
In a historic decision that will save Harborside and the legal cannabis industry millions of dollars, the U.S. Tax Court has ruled that the California dispensary is not liable for accuracy-related 280E penalties.
What isHarborside?
Harborside was founded by Steve DeAngelo and dress wedding in 2006, after being awarded one of the first six medical cannabis licenses granted in the United States.
As one of the oldest cannabis retailers in the world, Harborside has played an instrumental role in making cannabis safe and accessible to a broad and diverse community of California consumers.
Today, the Harborside brand is well known throughout California and all around the world, and is in rapid expansion, expecting to grow to six or more locations in 2019.
What is 280E?
280E is a tax code provision that denies all standard business deductions to businesses whose operations “consist” of of activities that violate the Controlled Substances Act.
26 U.S. Code § 280E – Expenditures in connection with the illegal sale of drugs
No deduction or credit shall be allowed for any amount paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business if such trade or business (or the activities which comprise such trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of schedule I and II of the Controlled Substances Act) which is prohibited by Federal law or the law of any State in which such trade or business is conducted.
According to the Opinion issued by the Court, Harborside acted “reasonably and in good faith” when taking its tax positions for the years at issue.
The Court cited Harborside’s timely filing of its tax returns and its maintenance of accurate financial records as a key strength, along with a persuasive argument from Harborside co-founder and Chairman Emeritus, Steve DeAngelo, that he made good-faith efforts to comply with the law, despite a lack of clear legal authority to guide medical marijuana dispensary taxpayers.
The ruling comes just a few weeks after the same Court ruled that 280E itself does apply to Harborside — a ruling Harborside intends to appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We’re still working on knocking out 280E entirely, but at least for now we have established that cannabis businesses who operate in reasonable, good faith compliance with existing law will not suffer from additional unjust penalties,” said DeAngelo.
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