Medical marijuana users caught in state-federal conflict

By Steph Sherer Fri September 5, 2014

Editor’s note: Steph Sherer is founder and Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access, a national organization that seeks to promote safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely hers.
(CNN) — Ten years in prison seems like a life-changing sentence for most people, but for 70-year-old Larry Harvey, it would effectively be a death sentence.
The grandfather and several members of his family are facing federal charges for something the state of Washington has considered legal for more than 15 years.
Larry is a medical marijuana patient. He legally used cannabis to treat severe pain, caused by a lifetime of work as a commercial fisherman and long-haul truck driver. Larry and his wife, Rhonda, live in the mountains outside a tiny town called Kettle Falls, where they garden, hunt and fish for nearly all of their food. Cannabis was among the dozens of herbs that grew on their property.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/05/opinion/sherer-medical-marijuana-prosecutions/