A Pa. medical marijuana patient goes to court after being denied federally subsidized housing

February 13, 2020
AggregatedNews
Pennsylvania
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A panel of three Pennsylvania judges will hear an appeal from an impoverished disabled veteran who said she was denied federally subsidized housing solely because she is a medical marijuana patient.

Mary Cease, 68, was discharged from the U.S. Navy decades ago due to an injury that left her with metal rods in her back, PTSD, and chronic pain.

Cease became a state-approved medical marijuana patient in 2018 after she became worried about becoming addicted to her pain-killing opioids and her doctor recommended that she substitute newly state-legal cannabis for the hard prescription narcotics, her lawyer said.

“She didn’t know that decision would jeopardize her housing,” said her lawyer, Judith D. Cassel, of Hawke McKeon & Sniscak in Harrisburg.

On Thursday, Cassel’s law firm colleague, appellate lawyer Kevin McKeon, will argue the case before Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.

Cease had been living in Section 8 housing in Wilkes Barre, but fled that city when she became a victim of domestic violence. When she applied two years ago for new federally subsidized housing in Indiana County near Pittsburgh, Cease was placed on a waiting list. [Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer]