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Terminal Cancer Patient Fined $2,000 For Marijuana
Tom Finnegan | Star Bulletin | 12/06/2005

LIHUE » A cancer patient with a medical marijuana license from California said he was relieved that he avoided jail time after being sentenced last week for promotion of marijuana.

Keith Bierlich of Kilauea was instead fined $2,000, despite using the marijuana for medical purposes. Bierlich has asbestos cancer in his stomach and esophagus, according to his lawyer.

Bierlich was arrested last year with 1.2 pounds of marijuana that was shipped to him from the mainland. That is well above the legal amount for someone with a medical marijuana license to legally possess.

Instead, he was charged with first-degree promotion of a detrimental drug, a felony that has a imprisonment of up to five years. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, second-degree promotion, in August.

In Bierlich's defense, lawyer Daniel Hempey said his client "moved to Kauai to die" and should not be treated the same as a recreational user.

He used it "to relieve pain and nausea and to allow himself to eat," Hempey added. "He ordered a large supply" so he would not have to buy it in the street.

Bierlich has since sworn off all pain medication and marijuana, Hempey continued, and has turned to acupuncture.

While Deputy Prosecutor Rosa Flores argued that Bierlich admitted smoking marijuana well before his cancer diagnosis, she also asked for no jail time.

Circuit Judge George Masuoka agreed but added that if Bierlich was in his court again, he would have no problem sending him to spend his last days in jail.

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TheNewGuy

Thats some good compassion right there. How DARE he smoke marijuana to make his last remaining days on earth more peaceful then they would be without it.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

vladimir

two questions:
first, what does this mean and also, does hawaii allow medical marijuana?

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If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end of, the human experiment.

manatee54

Amen - We are such a cruel Nation sometimes. I am for "all" terminal patients to have free rights to happiness. I can't help but remember a great movie, and reccomend it to all. Solyent Green (might have misspelled Solyent), anyway, Edward G. Robinson wants to die, so they have a most beautiful ceremony for him.

This country(the medical community) takes dying people and hurts them more. When my father was dying from cancer, they gave him tylenol for the pain, and he developed bed sores from neglect.

I would much rather have pictured him with a vaporizer, or whatever, to make him smile until the end.

I hope in my lifetime, this country will develop some compassion for those with terminal illness'