Court: Medical Pot No Excuse for Troubled Teen

"Smoking dope isn't going to help any of this."

A medical marijuana card is no excuse for a kid in trouble with the law to smoke pot.

That's the idea behind a ruling in San Francisco, where a state appeals court on Monday upheld a judge's order to ban a teenager from smoking marijuana, even though he had a medical cannabis card to use the drug for migraine headaches.

Daryl Moret was 19 when he was arrested for carrying a loaded handgun that police found had been stolen the year before. He could have been jailed for up to three years but he pleaded no contest in exchange for probation. The lighter sentence came with a catch -- Moret had to agree to put down the pipe and clean up his act.

The boy had potential, Superior Court Judge Peter Foor believed, and said at Moret's 2008 sentencing hearing that "smoking dope isn't going to help any of this," the Chronicle reported.

Moret appealed the ruling, saying it violated his rights as a medical marijuana patient under Prop 215. In the ruling in San Francisco on Monday, the court said the ruling stands because the defendant could choose to reject the conditions of the sentence and accept the  the alternative -- jail time.
 

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