W.V.: pot smoker sues over rejection by pain management center

As a condition of granting pain-management services, Family Care Health Center in Putnam County, West Virginia required patient Ronald Sprouse to sign an agreement stipulating that he would cooperate with unannounced urine and bodily fluid testing and that the presence of “unauthorized substances (legal or illegal) will result in discharge from the practice.” Kicked out of the program after testing positive for cannabinoids, Sprouse admits using them but is suing the health center and doctor anyway: “When he does not smoke marijuana, Sprouse claims he becomes violent toward his family and does not leave his house in fear of how he will react toward others in society.” He is representing himself. It’s too bad for his case that he doesn’t live in California, where lawmakers seem to be headed toward making medical marijuana smokers a legally protected class. (Kelly Holleran, “Pot smoker sues for getting dismissed from pain management center”, W.V. Record, Sept. 8)(& KevinMD, ER blog Crass-Pollination).

Nathan Myrhvold’s trollery?

The Wall Street Journal takes a critical look (Amol Sharma and Don Clark, “Tech Guru Riles the Industry By Seeking Huge Patent Fees”, Sept. 17). Via Felix Salmon who adds,

Intellectual Ventures and its ilk are arguably the single biggest risk to America’s continued leadership in technology and innovation. As dsquared elegantly put it in a comment here in May, the company might do a bit of R, but it doesn’t do any D. Instead, it acts as a brake on any company wanting to do substantive R&D of its own, since there’s a good chance Intellectual Ventures will have got there first, patented the idea, and then just decided to sit on it until somebody dares to violate it.

September 17 roundup

Blog-comment speechcrimes in Canada

“Anyone who runs an online message board, from the lowliest vanity blogger to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, can be charged under federal human rights law if visitors to their site post hateful comments, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. … ‘If a message board owner can’t manage to ensure the content of the message board is complying with Canadian law, then the message board should not be operating,’ [CHRC lawyer Margot Blight] said.” (National Post via Western Standard Shotgun blog; more; StageLeft.info via Reynolds).

Radio silence? Suit against conservative talk show hosts

Los Angeles: “David Birke and his attorney Johnny Birke filed a complaint Aug. 27 against seven talk show hosts of KRLA-AM (870), Salem Communications Corporation and its owner Edward Atsinger III, alleging that they use the public airwaves to push Republican beliefs. David and Johnny Birke would not say whether they were related, citing attorney-client privilege. … Radio hosts Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller, Mike Gallagher and Kevin James are named as defendants in the suit.” The various defendants have defrauded the public and violated FCC obligations “by using their radio license to discuss only Republican issues, Johnny Birke said Monday.” (Veronica Rocha, “KRLA sued over content”, Glendale News-Press, Sept. 8). Radio Equalizer (Sept. 9) notes one presumed irony: “KRLA has in the past featured a show on the subject of lawsuit abuse.”