SF Buyer's Club: Case Files, McCormick 



CASE FILE: Todd McCormick

by James Rutenberg
On the shoulder of Interstate 80 in the middle of southern
Ohio, cornfields to the horizon, a state trooper stops a minivan
with California plates. It's August, and it's hot. The cop, part of
a special narcotics unit, is supposed to be watching for illegal 
drugs on this particular stretch of blacktop, about 60 miles from
Toledo. Every now and then, though, he makes routine traffic stops
like this one.


The cop strolls to the driver's side, expecting to write a ticket 
for what has to be the most insignificant traffic violation on the 
books: a curtain in the van's back window is blocking the driver's
view.


But no, it's a drug case after all: the driver, 25-year-old Todd 
McCormick, is confidently puffing away on a big, fat joint. With 
the privileged air of a Grateful Dead roadie on a backstage pass, 
he exhales a cloud of blue smoke into the trooper's face before 
the cop can ask for his license and registration. The cop is not 
amused.


Nothing McCormick says amuses the police officer either: something 
about a pot prescription from a doctor in Amsterdam? And being 
the first American ever to bring the drug in legally? The "I have
a note from home" approach won't work here. And it's not long 
before a crew of drug busters are removing 32 pounds of six 
different varieties of marijuana from the minivan. McCormick 
and his girlfriend, Natalie Byrd, 24, are handcuffed on charges of 
drug abuse, drug trafficking and conspiracy.


McCormick's not lying, though. Ohio authorities have stumbled on
a national movement to bring relief from pain and nausea to the 
seriously ill--in flagrant violation of state and federal laws.


At a bail hearing a month after his arrest, McCormick describes
his interrupted cross-country journey to Bryan County Judge Tony
Gretick as a "mercy trip." He says he was transporting marijuana 
to activists in Rhode Island for free distribution to people 
suffering from HIV, cancer, and glaucoma--the same thing 
McCormick's own group does back in San Diego.


Judge Gretick also learns something about the defendant's past: 
at age two, he was struck with cancer that fused some of 
the vertebrae in his neck, causing lifelong pain that is eased only 
by pot. McCormick started smoking pot for his illness as a second-
grader in Providence, Rhode Island. When other kids were drawing 
with crayons, he was learning to roll joints. It was his mother's 
idea, he says. "Once I started smoking, I became one of the few 
children in the [cancer] ward who wasn't pale and bald--I was
also one of the ones who didn't die."


The drug has helped McCormick keep his appetite during nauseating 
rounds of chemotherapy, and knocked his cancer, a bone disorder 
called histiocytisis X, into remission. "I'm trying to save a lot of 
lives, including my own.... By denying my right to medication, you're 
denying me treatment," he tells Gretick.


Despite McCormick's convincing speech, the judge sets bail at 
$150,000. The Amsterdam prescription is of no interest, especially 
after customs officials say allowing McCormick and his pot into the 
country was a mistake.


Gretick does, however, permit McCormick to smoke the drug in jail 
after producing letters from doctors at Harvard University and New 
York City's Mount Sinai Medical Center. "I am not unmindful of 
literature on the medical effects of marijuana in treating certain 
diseases," the judge tells McCormick. And--following a swell of 
favorable press around Bryan and a strongly pro-McCormick
commentary in USA Today--bail is reduced to $20,000. McCormick 
is out of jail in 52 days. (Byrd in 29.)


McCormick, who faces trial this winter, hopes the coterminous 
cases in Seattle against Joanne McKee and in New York City against 
Johann Moore will bring public attention to bear on this issue
like never before.




Update: Cannabis Patient Continues To Be Denied
Prescription; Allegations of Civil Rights Abuses
Prompt NORML Lawyers To Take Action

"September 2, 1995, Bryan, OH: Recent events have discouraged hopes 
that medical cannabis user Todd McCormick will be legally permitted 
to use his prescribed medicine-marijuana while in jail. According 
to McCormick, Judge Anthony Gretich is now requiring that an 
American physician who has physically examined McCormick must 
additionally submit a written statement supporting his prescription 
for cannabis....


McCormick already has letters from three prominent American doctors 
(NORML Board Chairman Lester Grinspoon M.D., NORML Board member 
John Morgan, M.D., and Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D.) supporting his
prescription. Inexplicably, however, although McCormick received 
these supportive statements on August 18, he maintains that his 
public defender, John Schaffer, failed to file any motions on his 
behalf until September 1.... 


Even more alarming were recent reports of civil and constitutional
rights violations taking place against McCormick. Following McCormick's 
live-from-prison telephone interview with a local Ohio radio station, 
Warden Jim Dennis reportedly forbade McCormick any further press 
contact. He was also denied access to phone calls and visitors...." 

(from the NORML site)


Update: Judge Drops Charges Against Medical 
Marijuana User Todd McCormick


"...Judge Gretick ruled that state troopers had illegally searched 
McCormick's vehicle and ordered that the evidence be suppressed.  It
is expected that the state will appeal Gretick's verdict...."



(from NORML)
 












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