Hydroponic Tomato Garden Inspired Police To Raid Family's Home

WASHINGTON - The police report would claim it all kicked off at 7:38 a.m., but Bob Harte later thought it had to be earlier.

His 7:20 a.m. alarm had just yanked him awake. Got to get the kids - a boy in seventh grade, a girl in kindergarten - ready for school. Then he heard, like a starter's pistol setting everything into motion, the first pounding on the front door of his home in Leawood, Kansas, a bedroom suburb south of Kansas City. It was thunderous. It didn't stop. Should I get up? Bob thought. Should I not? Sounded like the house was coming down, he would recall later.

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A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Garden City woman against the state and several agencies after her son was removed from her home in March 2015 when he told school officials she used marijuana.

Shona Banda alleged in the lawsuit filed in March that the defendants denied her civil rights by refusing to allow her to use medical marijuana to treat her Crohn's disease, interfered with her parenting and questioned her son without her permission. Medical marijuana is not legal in Kansas.

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WICHITA, Kan. - Law enforcement officials in Kansas cannot stop and search motorists just for having out-of-state license plates from states that have legalized marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit filed by a Colorado motorist, Peter Vasquez, against two Kansas Highway Patrol officers who pulled him over and searched his vehicle as he was driving alone at night through Kansas on his way to Maryland.

The officers, Richard Jimerson and Dax Lewis, stopped Vasquez when they could not read the temporary tag taped to the inside of the car's tinted rear window. The officers contended they were justified in searching the vehicle because Vasquez was a resident of Colorado driving on I-70, a "known drug corridor," in a recently purchased, older-model car. They said he also seemed nervous.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Law enforcement officials in Kansas cannot stop and search motorists just for having out-of-state license plates from states that have legalized marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit filed by a Colorado motorist, Peter Vasquez, against two Kansas Highway Patrol officers who pulled him over and searched his vehicle as he was driving alone at night through Kansas on his way to Maryland.

The KHP officers, Richard Jimerson and Dax Lewis, stopped Vasquez when they could not read the temporary tag taped to the inside of the car's tinted rear window. The officers contended they were justified in searching the vehicle because Vasquez was a citizen of Colorado driving on I-70, a "known drug corridor," in a recently purchased, older-model car. They said he also seemed nervous.

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Police Can't Stop Cars for Having Plates From States That Have Legal Marijuana

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Law enforcement officials in Kansas cannot stop and search motorists just for having out-of-state license plates from states that have legalized marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit filed by a Colorado motorist, Peter Vasquez, against two Kansas Highway Patrol officers who pulled him over and searched his vehicle as he was driving alone at night through Kansas on his way to Maryland.

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TOPEKA, Kan. - Five of a Navy veteran's children were taken into state custody because of suspected drug use and neglect, not because of his admitted use of medical marijuana, a Kansas appellate court has concluded.

Rulings by a three-judge Kansas Court of Appeals panel determined "the children did not feel safe returning home" to Raymond and Amelia Schwab, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

Raymond Schwab, whose case has become a rallying point for marijuana advocates, said he has used medical marijuana to treat PTSD, even though Kansas has not legalized it.

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WICHITA (TNS) - The Garden City mother who has become a face of the medicinal marijuana legalization movement in Kansas is suing the state of Kansas and some of the agencies involved in questioning and removing her then 11-year-old son from her home last spring after he spoke up about her cannabis use at school.

Shona Banda claims in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, that the state and the agencies are depriving her of her civil rights to treat a debilitating condition she suffers from and to parent her child. She also claims employees at her son's school, Bernadine Sitts Intermediate Center, and the Garden City Police Department violated her constitutional rights when they questioned her son without parental permission and searched her property without a warrant.

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Shona Banda Is Suing the State, Other Agencies

She Claims They Violated Her Constitutional Rights to Parent Her Son, Treat Disease

The Garden City mother who has become a face of the medicinal marijuana legalization movement in Kansas is suing the state and some of the agencies involved in questioning and removing her 11-year-old son from her home last spring after he spoke up about her cannabis use at school.

Shona Banda claims in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, that the state and the agencies are depriving her of her civil rights to treat a debilitating condition she suffers from and to parent her child. She also claims employees at her son's school and the Garden City Police Department violated her constitutional rights when they questioned her son without parental permission and searched her property without a warrant.

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Government's effort to cage Shona Banda (Marijuana Activist Still Plans to File Civil Rights Suit, Feb. 12, 2016) for using cannabis (marijuana/kaneh bosm) to treat Crohn's disease is vulgar, anti-Christian and should cease immediately.

Caging sick citizens who use cannabis is clearly and entirely the work of the devil. God indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants saying they're all good on literally the very first page. Many people know of cannabis as the tree of life and the very last page indicates the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. Not one single soul who has the "spirit of truth" supports this act of hatred. Americans must speak up and stamp out this evil.

Truthfully,

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

A Garden City mother facing criminal drug charges said this week that she still intends to file a lawsuit in federal court asserting a constitutional right to use marijuana to treat her Crohn's disease.

Attorneys for Shona Banda prepared the suit months ago and posted a draft version online.

Lawrence attorney Sarah Swain teamed with Long Beach, Calif., lawyer Matthew Pappas on the suit, and Banda said the delay in getting it filed is largely due to logistics.

"I guess they're trying to find out exactly how to go about it," Banda said in a recent phone interview. "They have to be in the same building at the same time, and they both have such hectic schedules."

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Regarding "God-given plant" and "Medical benefits" (Feb. 3 Letters to the Editor): I'm not sure that medical cannabis has all the healing properties mentioned. At best, it probably is a symptomatic reliever for most mentioned ailments. I feel that if it were as beneficial as some think, the medical arts would have been using it for a long time, as they have cocaine and other narcotics. As for not causing any deaths medically for 5,000 years: I know of nothing that can make that claim, much less cannabis.

It may be a God-given plant, but so is poison ivy, and I think I'll not smoke that anytime soon.

Mike Mawhirter, Derby

[end]

The writer of "The new snake oil" (Jan. 26 Letters to the Editor) must not be aware that cannabis has been documented for more than 5,000 years medically, still without a single death. That's safety on a biblical scale.

For millions of sick citizens, the real "cruelest side effect" is being caged for using the relatively safe, God-given plant.

STAN WHITE, DILLON, COLO.

[end]

As a Wichita representative of the Kansas Silver Haired Legislature (KSHL), I would like to respond to the "The new snake oil" (Jan. 26 Letters to the Editor). Unlike the letter writer, KSHL representatives have investigated why America's medical community is enthusiastically embracing the healing capabilities of cannabis. Based on that research, an 87 percent majority of KSHL representatives from across Kansas voted to urge the Legislature to legalize medical marijuana.

Though the letter writer said the "Food and Drug Administration has never been able to find that cannabis cures anything," according to the National Cancer Institute, the potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include prevention of nausea, appetite stimulation, pain relief and improved sleep. Scientists have also proved that medical marijuana is helpful in treating glaucoma, colitis, Crohn's disease, psoriasis, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and diabetes, to name a few conditions.

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Move over, snake oil. There is a new miracle tonic - cannabis oil.

Got aches? Got pains? Are you feeling too sober? Cannabis can cure all that ails you, including glaucoma, cancer, Ebola, epilepsy, the inability to see imaginary colors and more.

Never mind that the drug companies want nothing to do with it we all know that big pharmaceutical companies conspire to avoid making profits off of important cures. Never mind that the Food and Drug Administration has never been able to find that cannabis cures anything a bunch of potheads arbitrarily claimed online that cannabis does, so we know it must be true.

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This week saw serious Statehouse consideration of measures to reduce criminalization of marijuana and hemp.

The Kansas Supreme Court's narrow ruling last week voiding a Wichita ordinance left Kansans to wonder whether a city has the legal authority to approve penalties less punitive than state law for marijuana possession, while making some Wichitans feel as if their votes don't matter. Both outcomes were frustrating.

But if it once seemed pointless to say marijuana law is better debated in Topeka, it no longer does. This week saw more serious Statehouse consideration of measures to reduce criminalization of marijuana and hemp, and in the process ease suffering and save tax dollars.

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Topeka - Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Monday that he has launched a project to collect information from local law enforcement agencies about how marijuana purchased in Colorado is entering Kansas and how it's affecting the state.

"There are numerous and persistent anecdotal accounts of marijuana acquired in Colorado and illegally transported into Kansas causing harm here," Schmidt said. "But because of technology limits, the confirming data is elusive. Since Colorado's experiment with legalization is affecting Kansas, we need to know more about what is actually happening here so policymakers can make informed decisions."

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It is time to re-examine the war on drugs because it has failed

The idea of legalizing drugs as a method to combat drug abuse and drug-related crimes seems, at first blush, counterintuitive.

How could legalizing something as destructive as drugs serve to improve a persistent and growing problem? After decades of instilling in children the message that drug use is dangerous, how can we now change course with legalization?

Last week, attorney Brian Leininger, a former Wyandotte County prosecutor and former attorney for the Kansas Highway Patrol, explained the position of his group -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- to the Hutchinson Drug Impact Task Force.

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Attorney Brian Leininger disagrees with the assessment that the war on drugs has been a failure.

"Saying it's a failure probably gives it too much credit," he told the Hutchinson Drug Impact Task Force on Thursday.

Leininger, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said the drug war has been counterproductive and harmful, with stratospheric costs while never accomplishing its goals.

"It's not hard to get whatever drug you want right now," he said.

In addition to its financial cost, the war on drugs has put huge numbers of nonviolent people in prison and created a violent and profitable black market, Leininger said. In contrast to drugs, people don't sell beer or liquor on street corners because it isn't profitable, he said.

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Lawyers for Garden City resident Shona Banda have prepared a lawsuit against Gov. Sam Brownback and the state agency that has custody of her child, claiming she has a constitutional right to use cannabis to treat her Crohn's disease.

Banda self-published a book and posted videos online in which she says cannabis is the only treatment able to calm her condition. The national medical marijuana movement has rallied around her since March, when Garden City police came to her home and confiscated her cannabis after her 11-year-old son spoke up about her use of it at a school anti-drug presentation.

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The Garden City Police Department, Garden City USD 457, the State of Kansas, the governor and the Kansas Department of Children and Families are among the defendants in a lawsuit being prepared by attorneys for Shona Banda that alleges her rights to use cannabis for medicinal purposes and maintain custody of her son have been violated.

Banda's civil rights attorney, Matthew Pappas, worked with Sarah Swain, her criminal defense attorney, in preparing the lawsuit. They intend to file it in federal court in Wichita.

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