Federal medical marijuana prohibition and the resulting policies have killed an untold number of people. But sometimes federal laws lead directly and obviously to someone’s death. A Marijuana Policy Project media alert brings us the story:

Five years ago, Montana’s most outspoken medical marijuana patient — Robin Prosser — committed suicide after the DEA seized her medicine, making her life unbearable.

Now flash forward to this past Wednesday night, when the feds’ war on medical marijuana claimed another Montana citizen’s life …

Former medical marijuana provider Richard Flor died on Wednesday after suffering heart attacks and kidney failure about six months into his five-year federal sentence. Richard was sentenced despite suffering from diabetes, Hepatitis C, and osteoarthritis.

For months, the federal government failed to place him in a facility that could give him the medical care he needed — and that the judge recommended.

Let your Congress member know that it’s past time to end this carnage. 

Richard was Montana’s first registered caregiver, under a law that MPP passed via voter initiative in November 2004. He was assisting his wife Sherry — who suffers from chronic pain and is allergic to pain medications — as well as other patients.

Richard believed President Obama and his Justice Department when they said that medical marijuana providers would not be a federal enforcement priority. So, in 2009, Richard co-founded Montana Cannabis, where patients could get reliable, safe access to their medicine. But then the feds suddenly shifted their policy in March 2011, targeting Montana Cannabis and several other providers without warning.

The feds didn’t spare Sherry, either: She is serving a two-year sentence.

Please email your U.S. House representative to ask them to pass legislation to give legal protection to medical marijuana patients, caregivers, and businesses in the 17 (and soon to be more) states and the District of Columbia, where medical marijuana is legal.

When will this madness end? How many more people have to die?

- Joe Klare

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