minutes on the clock so you'll know precisely where you stand and if you would introduce yourself please certainly my name is speech wait at i represent loudly yang in this matter i intend to demonstrate this morning that my client and the other defendants strictly complied with the specific rules of washington state medical marijuana law that authorizes medical marijuana law we would submit that the facts are under spewed in this case basically and that the only question is whether the facts satisfy the statutory language i would submit that there is basically two discrete issues for the court to determine what the st one is the definition of person and the nd one is whether the two thousand and eleven amendments called mucosa require that a designated provider take a fifteen day break between serving qualified patients as to the definition of person the definition of there's a designated provider includes that a person is eighteen years of age or older the district court found that because of the eighteen years us cannabis which was the designated provider for all of the patients in this case couldn't qualify however the recent case that the district court relied on stated that mucosa is a as an exception to the washington state controlled substances act or c s a and that you have to interpret the exception to the general act that you can't look at the exception in isolation and that you need to achieve the overall statutory purpose here the underlying c s a provides that a person can the end of the individual corporation or prohibits possession of marijuana and other controlled substances and it's that statute that provides the additional definitions of person and agent and we're submitting that you can't just look at the exception that you have to look at the overall statutory purpose and not look at the exception in isolation and so in that case if we were reversed here and there was a prosecution going on there would be would the state be able to prosecute us cannabis as a corporation and i think that they would and so why would there be any significant difference to the definition of person under and under them you can't provisions if all of your agents are each in years of age or older the other issue i wanted to get into your honor is is the definition of designated provider this was a section that would have been  only has only one patient at a time and that was given a judicial gloss by the state courts to say that what that means is you can serve patients one at a time serially and if that and it extended the shoot case which was a shoe case to the marquardt case to say if you can serve one more more than one person at a time serially one must be able to grow marijuana for more than one patient at a time there is nothing that has changed the gloss of that statute to the rules and so when we look at the just again to be sure are you looking at the language and the two thousand and eleven amendment actually the it was going to be amended but governor gray gregg why are vetoed that amendment so this retained the definition of designated provider me and while moon was in effect the court of appeals in the state of washington found that a designated provider could grow for marijuana for more than one patient at a time and so if you had two patients you would be able to grow fifteen plants or twenty four dollars ounces or one and a half pounds times to the if there is nothing of the sections that the district court relied upon they can all be read consistently with the definition of designated provider with the gloss that's been given to it by the court of appeals of the state of and any time but you couldn't start again with a new patient unless fifteen days had elapsed from the date the st patient had designated you so as long as the patient had designated you more than fifteen days before you could go right away but there is nothing in there that prohibits a designated provider from serving more than one patient it at a time the other one is the investigating officer does not possess information that the designated provider has provided for more than one patient in a fifteen they period the fry case which we cite this is kind of like the present present requirement in that case the presentment requirement must be read in context and in the fry case the court held a state supreme court held that the present required meant facilitates the officers decision it please the court earl hicks representing the united states in this case i want to start off by saying that st of all marijuana dispensaries for medical marijuana dispensaries have never been legal in the state of washington and i argued that in my brief and i think that's enough to be said now what crime we're dealing with this conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and in order to  lawful and to do it to manufacture marijuana you have to be a designated provider or you have to be a marijuana patient now clearly from the record there were no designated provider paperwork for any of the actual people defendants in this case and so under the conspiracy to manufacture one hundred or more marijuana plants no one no person who was manufacturing that marijuana was a designated provider so what's been created by the defense is some agency theory that there were agents and when you look at the case closely the testimony is that they weren't ain't agents they were operating independently and where the to defend it's come in on the conspiracy who were running these dispensaries is that they own the property for the specific purpose of growing marijuana on that property and during their testimony they indicated they were not designated providers and it's very important to understand that is that in the seattle area marijuana dispensaries were tolerated they were not legal tolerating something that's on lawful does not make it legal and it shouldn't be that because something is tolerated that it's illegal that this should enjoying the government from protecting its own interest now during this the hearing that we had there was not a scintilla of evidence that what had taken place here was legal or was in strict compliance with the medical marijuana laws of the state of washington it was all to the contrary the people growing the marijuana and responsible for the conspiracy they were not designated providers they could not be users of marijuana because they didn't have washington state identification and of any type and in fact what they did is they brought up marijuana plants a minimum of five hundred dollars marijuana plants to the state of washington from california after they were told that they would go to jail and that the property would be forfeited there and when we look at this thing and we talk about advice of counsel the question that was asked is can you grow marijuana medical marijuana you could call me a federal prosecutor and asked me can i grow medical marijuana and i would tell you in the state of washington yes you can but did anybody know that they were going to grow one thousand and thirty one marijuana plants was that attorney aware of that there's no evidence of that whatsoever now we talk about the fact that they need valid documentation at the location showing that they're designated provider for somebody and the statute says you have to ask but what was clear evidence that the government proved is that there was no documentation and no ask and we didn't ask because there was no documentation and witnesses indicated including yang defendant yang and defendant sinew day they indicated that they didn't have that and mr wrote about another codefendant indicated that he had told them all twelve times that they had to do that but that they told him they weren't going to do now so when you just explain given the governor's repeal given the prior legislation and given this language about  being having a qualified designated provider what provision did they violate well the provisions that they violated was one there was no designated provider to the actual patients that were at the dispensary other than the dispatchers claim that they themselves were the designated provider ok and the government saying wait a minute that corporation you know this other statute that's citing that's not within muka it's not within the medical marijuana laws that have to be strictly complied with so they're bringing in a statute from outside to make the definition that's not within the other thing that happens is that they couldn't manufacture because they were not patients themselves the rd thing that's there is there was a distinct change and one council site the shoop case it actually was decided and i forget the exact date excuse me it was decided after the two thousand and eleven amendments and in the sho case they noted that the law had been changed and their decision only applied to a prior statute the law is clear that you can have only one patient at a time and there has to be a fifteen minute fifteen day break what happens is section two tells the person who is the designated provider that he no can no longer become the designated provider remember when they were growing this the law clearly had changed one person every fifteen days by the way if you look at any of the medical marijuana websites and i've got some in in the supplemental excerpt of record number one it clearly says when frequently asked questions and it's the washington state official website that number one you can only have one patient one number two it says medical marijuana dispensaries are not  legal so what happens is they were only allowed one so once they had one they couldn't have three hundred and the mere fact that there was no withdraw all papers on either side is up in significant just like the procedures they used there in significant for a number of reasons the other thing is the source of their marijuana the source of patient themselves are using it for the purpose of their debilitating disease their medical issue and what kept on being said is that because the of course the marijuana grow was never there was never any marijuana from that marijuana grow what had happened is they were buying off buying from their own medical marijuana patients is what they said but what happened is they're not entitled when they did that they weren't medical marijuana patients so their source was illegal the fact that they could only have one patient at a time they didn't give any credence to that and i'll say this what is deliberate ignorance if you read the record they never looked into anything and when they're talking about oh marijuana is legal what they're talking about is the recreational statute came into thank you thank you very much emphasize the evans decision and quote that we did put in there is that it is indeed our burden but it's a more likely than not standard and so i just wanted to really emphasize that portion of the evans decision in regard to this deliberate ignorance i'd kind of want to start and there my response to what the government put forth there is evidence that our clients strictly complied they went above and beyond strict compliance by getting themselves a business license by insuring themselves by having a brick and mortar  by calling a lawyer they truly went at least according to our record above and beyond they did everything they possibly could to comply  medical marijuana statute authorized marijuana growers without state approval yes because the registry portion of the two thousand and eleven law was vetoed by governor gregoire and that was in response to the government's letter to governor gregg wire indicating that if the state were to require this registry that that would then indeed open up the potential for the department of justice to go after state employees so the governor vetoed that portion so there was no registry your honor no requirement of any kind of approval to engage you in growing marijuana the two thousand and just to be specific to your honest question is this in regard to the registry portion that was vetoed out your honor is that what the question is a simple question under the medical marijuana statute was there any requirement any restriction on the ability of individuals to engage in the growing of marijuana there definitely was and you had to be eighteen years or older you had to designate somebody if you couldn't do it yourself and in this case  clients form a corporation and that corporation was designated to provide medical marijuana to a certain number of individuals so yes there is a very you know rigid statutory scheme  says that the amount the total amount in the marijuana grow are concerned with your today would be enough to have thirty patients today would you say  that the as our clients had in their possession they had their possession hundreds if maybe i recall maybe even a one thousand or more of these designated provider forms so each of those would allow our corporation to grow fifteen plants for each of those individuals so the number i think here is a relevant it is the amount of those designated provider forms that our clients were able to show show the court so if there was one yes your honor you'd be correct that we would far exceed that amount but we didn't have just one we had hundreds if not all have to look into the record but it could be more likely t represented to us that the that the state's own web site said the medical marijuana dispensaries were not legal in the state of washington the times are correct there was some information but i don't know when that information was disseminated whether or not that information was specifically disseminated to our clients there is nothing to the record there that would be pretty strong evidence that the state itself didn't believe that corporate ownership would allow you to distribute marijuana on a widespread basis and again that may be an agency  decision and somebody in olympia thinking that but the statutory scheme that our clients were under at the time dead allow for that because you because you are a corporation correct is a person correct yes yes and i believe my time is almost completely up you see the red button your honor yes couple more minutes we gave you just to answer the questions i appreciate it thank you