What Do YOU Think: Should Medical Marijuana Patients Get Their Medicine Back?

(Cross-posted at The Liberal OC)

If police officers seize marijuana legally kept by a medical marijuana patient, should they have to give the property back?

This is what The Register wrote about today, and this is what I'm wondering today. After all, California voters chose to allow for the medicinal use of marijuana under Prop 215. However, many local law enforcement agents in California still arrest medical marijuana users and confiscate their medicine. So do YOU think law enforcement should return the marijuana to the patients once they have determined that these patients are legitimately protected under Prop 215?

Check out what happened to these two patients, and think about how they were treated:

Felix Kha of Garden Grove had 8 grams seized from him in June 2005 during a traffic stop. Criminal charges were later dismissed after Kha proved he had a prescription for the drug – which he uses for back pain.

Kha then asked a judge to make Garden Grove police give him back the marijuana. Orange County Judge Linda Marks agreed, and ordered the department to return it. [...]

Besides the Kha case, justices heard about what happened to Jim Spray of Huntington Beach. Police confiscated 5 ounces of marijuana from Spray, as well as his growing equipment in November 2005. He had a prescription for the drug, also for back pain. But Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel T. Brice, ruled he shouldn't get his marijuana back.

"The people have spoken in their voting record for support of medical marijuana,'' said Spray, who also attended the hearing. "This vacillation from city to city and various judges shouldn't be happening."

So a local judge decided that Garden Grove Police needed to return the medical marijuana to Feliz Kha, but they haven't. Meanwhile Jim Spray asked that his medical marijuana be returned to him, but another judge denied him of his request. Is this a fair application of the law? Or should the 4th District State Court of Appeal overturn Judge Brice's ruling, and decide that all police departments must return the medical marijuana to patients should these patients show evidence that they had legal prescriptions?

I want to know what YOU have to say on this matter. So go ahead. Make my day. have your say.