Jeran Dunmire was jailed for two days in July for following doctor’s orders.
Not long before, his doctor had written him a prescription for medical marijuana. The physician thought the drug could help wean Dunmire from his long-running opioid addiction, a use approved by the state Department of Health.
But then Dunmire, 38, ran head-on into the edict of Jefferson County Judge John H. Foradora, the president judge there and, in fact, the only judge in the rural county 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Dunmire, who has battled opioid addiction for decades, had enrolled in the county’s drug court program. But Foradora, in seeming defiance of the state’s medical marijuana law and a recent state Supreme Court ruling, decreed that people such as Dunmire arrested on narcotics charges could not take part unless they turned in their medical marijuana cards. When Dunmire refused, he was locked up.
While it’s unclear how many defendants statewide have been similarly snagged, advocates of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program law say they have fielded a steady stream of complaints about the issue since the limited legalization took effect two years ago. Dunmire’s outright jailing appears rare, but the advocates say judges in several counties are requiring defendants to eschew medical marijuana or face prison.