Washington

[palmspringsbum]

This document was modified last on Jun 14, 2006 - 12:12:51 PDT

Judge sides against tenant on use of marijuana as medicine

BY GORDON WEEKS News editor
Anacortes American

A judge has dismissed an Anacortes man’s $5 million lawsuit against the Anacortes Housing Authority, which charged the agency with violating his family’s civil rights by trying to evict him for keeping two 7-foot snakes and smoking marijuana for medical purposes on the premises.

In his decision, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik ruled that the rights of Michael Assenberg and his fiance Carla Kearney were not violated when the Anacortes Housing Authority in September 2005 told the couple to vacate their apartment on 22nd Street for violating its policies on pets and the use and possession of a controlled substance.

The AHA is a publicly funded housing authority subsidized by funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides affordable public housing to low-income people.

In his ruling dismissing the lawsuit, the judge stated that Assenberg’s possession and cultivation of marijuana to treat pain from a 1985 attack violates the federal Controlled Substances Act, and renders the couple ineligible for federally subsidized housing pursuant to their lease, HUD regulations and federal statutes. Assenberg also did not prove the two snakes — a 7-foot gopher snake named Nikki, and a 6-1/2-foot-long redtail boa named Savannah — are “service animals’’ that offer him comfort for severe physical and emotional distress stemming from an assault, the judge ruled.

“In sum, the court finds that AHA did not fail to reasonably accommodate Assenberg’s disabilities. Because Kearney’s claims are derivative of Assenberg’s claims, her claims also fail as a matter of law.’’

The couple now is battling eviction from the three-bedroom apartment through the state Superior Court, and plans to file an appeal to Judge Lasnik’s ruling with the 9th Circuit Court.

“The judge just played puppet to what the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) said,’’ the 46-year-old Assenberg said of the court ruling. He points out that the state allows him to grow and use marijuana for his pain through the Washington State Medical Marijuana Act.

Assenberg said he wanted to present his case to a jury, and never had the opportunity to talk to the judge.

“We followed federal rules and regulations, and the money and time we used to defend our stance could have been put to better use in our community,’’ said Theresa McCallum, the executive director of AHA.

Assenberg’s disabilities stem from an attack in January 1985. While working as a security guard for a mining company in Corona, Calif., an assailant struck Assenberg on the back with a baseball bat. He fell about 15 feet and landed on his back on boulders, breaking nine bones from his neck to his tailbone. In 2005, he moved from Tacoma to Anacortes to live in the AHA apartment with his fiance Kearney, whom he met over the Internet.

In his suit filed in November 2005, Assenberg sought $5 million in damages, court costs and an order stopping AHA from evicting him from the apartment. In its court answer to the complaint, the AHA denied it violated the civil rights of Assenberg and Kearney, and requested an order acknowledging its right to terminate Assenberg as a tenant.

The judge sided with the AHA.

“Assenberg never informed AHA that he trained the snakes or that they had any unique characteristics or abilities to qualify them as service animals. Therefore, Assenberg did not show that the snakes were a necessary accommodation.’’

The judge also ruled that “even after Assenberg refused to provide the requested information or agree to any limits on the snakes, AHA allowed plaintiffs to keep the snakes until it learned that plaintiffs were using and possessing marijuana on the premises. AHA had no duty to accommodate an admitted illegal drug user.’’

Kearney, 41, said her fiance suffers crippling pain, spasms and blackouts when he has no marijuana. Assenberg also takes morphine and Percocet daily to control the pain.

“Our fight is not to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, but to legalize the medical use of marijuana for the patients that need to use it for a medical reason with a doctor’s note,’’ said Kearney. “Our fight is to change federal law so that housing authorities cannot kick people out of the only home they can afford for using their legal use of medicine in the states that have voted it in. Where are the rights of voters? As far as the federal government is concerned, we the people have no rights. Is our country a democracy or a dictatorship?’’

[Midnight toker]

Club Pot Med
<blockquote><i>
Livid over the vague voter-enacted state law allowing use of medical marijuana, a crusading lawyer tries to untangle unintended consequences. The law has driven the supply system underground, pot patients are getting busted, and some cops, prosecutors, and judges just don't get it.</i>
</blockquote>
By Philip Dawdy
The Seattle Weekly
August 16, 2006

<table align=right width=25><tr><td><table class=posttable><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/buds.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Inside the "bloom room" of a medical marijuana grow operation in metro Seattle.</td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td><table class=posttable><tr><td class=postcell>Seattle Hempfest The 15th annual cannabis-policy-reform event is Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 19–20, at Myrtle Edwards Park. Free. www.hempfest.org. Graves heard noise behind his house one evening last October. The house backed onto an alley in the University District, and he was always watchful. He went to the back of the house to investigate. A woman was banging on his bedroom window from the alley below.

Graves calls her a crackhead and crack dealer. He took a laser pointer and aimed it at a "No Trespassing" sign. The woman and Graves exchanged unpleasantries. "Take your crack dealing somewhere else," Graves said to her. She'd been a hassle for him before. "They were always out back of the framing shop doing their thing," Graves says.

At some point, Graves pointed to an unloaded Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, hanging on a rack on his bedroom wall. Graves, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, stout, with a broken spine, was a firm believer in keeping neighborhood crackheads and street people from his property—and being capable of dealing with them should they break in. Once they learned what was inside his home, he'd be screwed.

Graves, you see, had a medical marijuana growing operation, associated with a religious group called Earth Family Ministries, in the basement of the house on 12th Avenue Northeast. Known as a "group grow," the garden had about 100 plants—worth maybe $200,000 on the street when fully grown, although many plants were far from mature. Graves was part of the subculture providing medical marijuana for patients in the Seattle area. In his case, Graves says, he and others grew the pot for at least 10 patients.

The crackhead called Seattle police. And so Graves' house became the site of the biggest medical marijuana bust in Seattle since medical marijuana was legalized in Washington in 1998.

If Graves' attorney, Douglas Hiatt, a crusader in a Cubs T-shirt and jeans, gets his way, a crackhead will help change state law. But back to the bust.

At 8:26 p.m., police arrived to investigate the alleged assault because the weapon was displayed. The cops caught the skunky odor of marijuana coming from the house—probable cause on the breeze. Graves, who'd been inside smoking against his back pain, came to the front porch to answer their query. The break in his spine is held together by interlocking C-clamps, and only a few hours go by when Graves isn't in acute pain, pain that multiple surgeries have not corrected.

One cop asked about a small tree in the front yard. A marijuana plant?

"It's a Japanese maple," Graves explained. Then he leveled with the cops: Inside the house was a pot grow for chronically ill patients. He told them, he says, that he wasn't the sole gardener, that others helped him grow the pot. Patients were working collectively to grow medical marijuana for one another—a group grow, as they are called, but nowhere near as in the open as they are in California.

Graves had run afoul of a gray area in Washington state's medical marijuana law, approved by voters. The law is silent on how patients incapable of growing for themselves are to gain access to medical marijuana.

The police entered Graves' home, the ministry, and seized about 100 marijuana plants in various stages of maturity. Seattle police also seized $1,730 in cash, money Graves said came from patients for the power bill. The cops clearly thought otherwise. They also took the shotgun and a Daisy air rifle in the sweep.

Then, police did something that could only happen in a city where police generally couldn't care less about pot. They permitted Graves to keep nine plants, as allowed under city of Seattle policy for medical marijuana patients; 2 pounds of dried marijuana; and several bongs and other smoking paraphernalia.

Graves says a sergeant on the scene told him that SPD was looking for a test case, in essence, to clarify the ill-defined medical marijuana law.

Soon after, Hiatt, a former public defender, got involved. He usually does. If there's a bust involving medical marijuana within state borders, Hiatt has his finger in the dike in some fashion, no matter how major or chippy the case, always working to get charges dropped by convincing cops and prosecutors that, yes, there is a medical marijuana law and his client abides by it. It's Hiatt's jihad in the drug war.

Is there a medical marijuana patient threatened with eviction from public housing? Hiatt pounds on the Seattle Housing Authority. A medical marijuana patient tests positive for pot on an employer-required piss test? Hiatt can negotiate that job back.

The mess that gets Hiatt out of bed each day exists because the state's medical marijuana law is so broadly worded that cops keep busting legitimate patients, that judges state that the law doesn't exist, and that newly diagnosed cancer patients, for example, are frequently left with no practical way to grow their own marijuana, as the law allows. They are a bit too sick, and it takes three to four months to go from seed to weed. That's a lot of vomiting in the meantime.

As a result, an underground of patient collectives has cropped up, intent on providing patients, new and old, with ready access to medicinal cannabis, as some call it.

Hiatt's crusade is to keep patients and growers out of the clutches of law enforcement and jail. He's a busy man, presently engaged in keeping Graves from going to the joint and juggling other cases as well. It's work he does pro bono, the bill covered by a grant. Recently, a medical marijuana patient he'd gotten out of a legal jam gave Hiatt a 300-pound hog. Hiatt is a Chicago native and wore a Stan Mikita helmet playing hockey as a kid. He welcomed the pork.

"I felt like Atticus Finch," he says, laughing his ass off. The reference is to a classic legal-hero archetype, paid with chickens in To Kill a Mockingbird.

To listen to Hiatt talk about the realities around medical marijuana laws— who gets busted and who goes to jail— is fascinating. It is also a bit like opening a fire hydrant on a hot day.

"Does our law allow for co-ops, for group grows? Can you have a cooperative grow? I'm arguing that our law is big enough to allow patients to band together to grow together. To the federal government, it's all illegal. If patients are growing in groups, then it's a big fucking conspiracy. The U.S. attorney here [John McKay] hasn't pushed much on medical marijuana, but the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] is crazy on the subject."

In 1998, Washington voters approved a medical marijuana law. It allows sick people with certain conditions—cancer, AIDS/HIV, Crohn's disease, chronic pain, and a few other conditions—to legally smoke, possess, and grow a 60-day supply of pot for their own consumption, after their doctor "recommends" it. Or they can appoint a caregiver, a close friend, or a relative to grow the weed for them.

Hiatt has been working to plug the holes in that law for eight years.

After finishing his teen years in Atlanta, he went to George Mason University in Virginia and, after graduation, did political consulting in Washington, D.C. Later, he worked on Democratic election campaigns in Georgia, such as one against Newt Gingrich.

Hiatt, 47, stands about 6 feet tall and has graying hair pulled back in a short ponytail. His regular noncourt uniform consists of jeans, black tasseled loafers, and the Cubs T-shirt, untucked.

By the mid-1980s, he was married with two young daughters. He was also done with political work. In 1988, he packed the family into a car and drove across the country to attend law school at the University of Puget Sound. (This law school later moved to Seattle University.)

In the mid-1990s, Hiatt was a public defender in Skagit County, working on behalf of everyone from misdemeanants to alleged murderers. He was assigned to handle the case of a nurse who, stricken with rheumatoid arthritis, had taken it upon herself to seek relief by growing marijuana outside her home in Rockport. This was before self-medicating with pot was legal in this state. The nurse, Beverly Prouty, ran afoul of the law.

It was in the air in liberal circles in those days that marijuana helped AIDS and cancer patients in ways that conventional medicines could not, despite a dearth of studies on the matter. And here was Exhibit A. Hiatt sensed Prouty was getting actual medical value from the drug that the federal government still insists causes reefer madness.

Hiatt, then, re-examined his own attitude toward pot. He'd smoked some in college, yeah, but he'd had little more than a joint at cocktail parties since finishing law school. He had a wife and kids and a house in Ballard. Prouty eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. "That totally changed my life," Hiatt says now. "People who are sick and dying, being hassled for taking medicine—that's fucked up, bro."

A year or so later, he took up the case, pro bono, of an AIDS patient in Seattle who'd been popped for reefer. This is when Hiatt got religion. In those years, gay people were dying left and right from AIDS, and it was among those patients that Hiatt did his first work. Once, an AIDS patient went to the emergency room at Swedish Medical Center, covered with the skin lesions that AIDS can cause. A young doctor, upon learning that the man claimed to be a medical marijuana patient, right there in the ER diagnosed the man as a street drug user, and he was shuffled off to a waiting area. Hiatt got the call.

"I spent eight hours at Swedish fucking fighting to get that guy treated," he says. "I've watched doctors fuck with medical marijuana patients for years, and it is fucking bullshit. These people aren't dopers. These are sick people. The only crime is how they are treated."

In dribs and drabs, medical marijuana patients are still being busted in this state, especially in Thurston County and in Eastern Washington, where some cops, prosecutors, and judges see the medical marijuana law as nonexistent.

On a recent day, Hiatt held forth on the state of the law. He was driving his Toyota minivan—an anti-probable-cause model, as he calls it—on his way to see another patient who was in a dicey spot with Johnny Law.

"What pisses me off is the lack of respect for democracy," he says between cell phone calls. "Voters wanted sick patients to get relief. This is not what voters wanted. Look at Judge Baker."

Rebecca Baker is a Superior Court judge in Stevens County. In May, she accepted a plea deal from a man with chronic pain who, without the legally required doctor's recommendation, had begun growing and using pot. He was busted. Prosecutors recommended no jail time, since he faced an upcoming surgery. Community service in exchange for pleading guilty to manufacturing marijuana.

The judge gave him 10 days in the county jail anyhow, and a lecture.

"This medical marijuana defense is a very—it's almost a sham for people," said Baker, in an assessment at odds with state law.

"This is the kind of shit we put up with," says Hiatt. "How does the lady who's 70 years old get access to medical marijuana? The law doesn't work. If someone offered my client a deal like that, I'd say, 'Fuck you, motherfucker, this is not necessary.' In other words, you convict my client, and we'll see you in an appeals court."

In a recent Thurston County case, a medical marijuana patient with HIV was popped for possessing drugs. The prosecutor wanted the patient, Jessica Colpitt, to do eight years, owing to a school-zone enhancement. A jury found her not guilty of a felony. The jury did find her guilty of a misdemeanor. Colpitt's attorneys asked the judge to let the woman remain free while her case was appealed. Judges commonly grant such petitions for nonviolent offenders.

From the bench, the judge, Chris Wickham, said he wanted the woman to begin serving her sentence right away because she could die while the case was on appeal, according to lawyers in the case. The Colpitt case is currently being appealed to the Washington State Court of Appeals.

During another case, Hiatt was speaking with a deputy prosecuting attorney in the Thurston County prosecutor's office. Hiatt was pissed that the prosecution was throwing the book at a sick woman. The conversation became heated.

"Why don't you look at your calendar, find an afternoon when you are free, and go fuck yourself," Hiatt told the prosecutor. Hiatt was forcibly removed from the office.

Obviously, the way the law is applied in such cases makes Hiatt boil.

"The law is supposed to be remedial," Hiatt says. "It's supposed to fix something. It is not supposed to be interpreted by the courts so as to become a nullity. But that's not what's going on."

Somewhere in the Seattle metropolitan area is a small house on a street of other small houses. The front porches are squared to the same line, and the front steps are all close to the street. One of these modest homes has a basement, and if you are admitted through three padlocks attached to two sets of doors, you step into a series of small rooms, and you see where medical marijuana comes from.

The first room is what's known as the "veg room." The concrete walls are painted latex white and reflect intense overhead lights. This is the room where marijuana plants are nurtured from seedling to about 18 inches tall. There are approximately 40 such plants in this room. They are rooted in black plastic planters, all at least two months from being fully budded marijuana—or medicine, in patient parlance.

Smoking them at this stage would be about as useful as lighting up corn husks.

When they reach a certain age, these plants are transferred to the "bloom room." They go into larger planters, plastic paint buckets really, and are fed water and organic fertilizer. The gardener, who asked to remain anonymous, says he's proud that he and his fellow gardeners, medical marijuana patients all, are 100 percent organic.

The temperature in the room runs at 80-plus degrees, the result of three overhead 1,000-watt halide lights driven by small motors on tracks affixed to the ceiling. The idea is to re-create a partly cloudy day in an outdoor garden. There are 20 plants, each of which will yield perhaps 4 ounces of finished product—in all, about a 60-day supply for maybe 10 patients.

The plants look pretty and, aside from their distinctive leaves, could pass for a tomato plant or any number of vines. There are hundreds of strains of the Cannabis sativa plant, the result of decades of hybridization. A few strains of plants are grown in this room. Through trial and error, as the gardener explains it, medical-marijuana-patients-cum-growers have hit on strains they consider best for addressing certain ailments. Black Jack is good for chronic pain and helps people afflicted with Crohn's disease, or bone and nerve pain. Other strains are legendary for assisting cancer patients and AIDS/HIV patients to stave off, however momentarily, the nausea that often accompanies their treatments. Conventional antinausea drugs fail to address their inability to eat or drink.

There are two subtypes of marijuana: sativa and indica. Both are represented in this room, but only those of the female gender. Male plants don't flower. The sativa plants are tall, narrow, and lime green in color, with leaves that fan out at the top. Indica plants are shorter, by comparison, dense, and bushy, their vegetation an olive green.

Most of the plants in the room have only begun to puff out small buds. Perhaps five plants are nearing the end of their life cycle, which is three months or so. Their buds are the size of a small grape cluster. Tasty looking.

Two strong fans run constantly, creating a dense, sweet, skunky breeze. Marijuana plants wave back and forth. Stale, recycled air is bad for growing plants of any species.

The gardener says that utilities for the grow run about $1,000 a month, covered by contributions from patients.

An exhaust system removes air from the room and vents it outdoors after passing the air through a thick filter wrapped around an aluminum pipe. Many an indoor grow, medicinal or otherwise, has been taken down by neighbors calling cops after nosing the scent of growing marijuana issuing from a bloom room.

The filter removes 99 percent of the odor, the gardener says. Outdoors, near the vent, you'd never suspect anything.

Unlike California, where patients can walk right into a buyers club and get their RDA of THC, growing and distribution are very much on the hush-hush in Washington.

Delivery is how distribution is handled, says the gardener.

"Look, if your grandmother gets breast cancer tomorrow, she's not going to rush out and learn how to grow marijuana and all of a sudden have a 60-day supply of medical marijuana," says Hiatt. He's sitting in his donated office, the floor of which is covered with piles of legal briefs and transcripts. A poster of Che Guevara is on the wall next to a poster of President Nixon, a bull's-eye across his face.

"She's got to start chemo next week. She's sick, and she needs medicine right fucking now. Do we want her or her caregiver out on the street buying pot for her? Would they even know where to go? No."

Hiatt knows this firsthand. In 2001, his mother, Betty, was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy, along with chemotherapy.

"She couldn't eat and barely sipped water," says Hiatt. "She was throwing up $200 nausea pills and was down to like 80 pounds." His mother had never smoked pot before, but after giving it a go she found it to be the only solution for her nausea. She put on weight and went into remission.

"You just don't know how sticky your hands get until you've rolled 20 joints for your mother," he says.

But the cancer returned. Last year, Betty Hiatt was profiled by the Los Angeles Times. Soon after, she died.

The next month, Hiatt gave a passionate speech at Seattle Hempfest, denouncing the federal government for denying that marijuana has medicinal properties and for putting patients in jail, as the feds have done in California. Federal laws and state laws conflict dramatically on the use and possession of marijuana. What he didn't mention was how internally conflicted the Washington law is.

There are between 10,000 and 20,000 medical marijuana patients in Washington, depending on who does the estimating. Hiatt's estimate runs to 20,000, at least 5,000 of them in King County.

The law isn't specific about what constitutes a 60-day supply of marijuana. Is it a few joints? Or a pound of B.C. Bud? How many plants does that work out to?

That depends on how patients describe the situation. Depends on how sick they are. Depends on whether they smoke marijuana or cook with it (cooking requires more).

"The idea is to stay saturated," says Jon Graves, whose grow was busted in the University District. He says he smokes or cooks with about one-eighth of an ounce each day, give or take. He prefers joints (many patients who smoke do), but some opt for a bong or vaporizer. Graves also cooks with marijuana and makes butter with some of the ordinarily useless "fan leaves" of the plant.

Graves injured his back at a rubber factory in Elkhorn, Wis., in 1992. Following surgery, he was on as many as four large Vicodins a day with some Percocet on the side—powerful opiate painkillers. Soon, he became hooked and had to take them every day, even when his back wasn't hurting so much. He switched to medical marijuana because he couldn't tolerate being a zombie on opiates. How does he compare the two?

"Look, I'm still walking," he says. This is on a good day—he is standing there wearing a B.B. King T-shirt and jean shorts. A week later, the Army veteran could hardly move from his chair. Hiatt went to the kitchen and washed Graves' dishes.

Around the state, neighbors tattle on neighbors smoking pot. Still.

At times, the police rush in and seize all the pot and cash in the house. Patients have little defense at times like these: The authorized "recommendation" form (a quasi-prescription) that many carry means little to many cops.

Last week, prosecutors in Lewis County filed charges for growing pot and possessing paraphernalia against the mother of a Chehalis teen, a medical marijuana patient with a doctor's recommendation—in this case, from a University of Washington clinical professor. Her son has severe brain trauma and physical pain from an accident and spends his days in a wheelchair. His mother is his appointed caregiver, and she had a few plants in a backyard shed. Sheriff's deputies raided the small grow.

"You see?" says Hiatt, who plans to take on the prosecutors and the cops in Lewis County. "The law doesn't work. It's the kind of shit that just torques me."

Unlike Oregon and California, Washington has no recognized identification system so that patients can prove to law enforcers that they are on the up-and-up. When Washington patients show you their doctor's recommendations, the documents often are creased and worn—a condition guaranteed to raise eyebrows.

That's something state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D–Queen Anne, has tried to address through legislation for as long as there has been a medical marijuana law in the state. She says she plans to do so again come January.

What Hiatt and others would like to see is for the Legislature to make group grows, or patient cooperatives, legal under the law. That would push Washington's medical marijuana system much closer to the California standard.

In the Golden State, medical marijuana patients with $55 can score an eighth of an ounce from a dispensary and walk out with a prescription bottle filled with pot. Graves showed off one of those bottles from the Gold Star Pharmacy, which had once contained a strain called "Romulan" and had a bar code on the side.

Such openly available weed has spurred federal law enforcement to go after dispensaries in California the way they went after moonshine operations in the 1920s. In San Diego, federal and local authorities recently shut down several dispensaries.

"Marijuana is not medicine," says Special Agent Steve Robertson, a DEA spokesperson in Washington, D.C. "Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs."

Counters Greg Carter, a clinical professor of rehabilitative medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine: "The DEA, the FDA, and the drug czar—they pretty much pull stuff out of their ass and present it like it's fact, and proven fact at that, and that's not going to fly anymore." The Chehalis teen is his patient. "The evidence is there and the science is there" to establish that medical marijuana is effective medicine.

"I think we know a lot more about the science behind how the substances in marijuana work," says Eric Larson, director of Group Health Cooperative's Center for Health Studies. Larson was a co-author of the 1999 Institute of Medicine study on medical marijuana, which found that the drug had some medicinal value for some patients.

Hiatt says that the worst case in the Graves case is that it ends up in the hands of the feds. But in Washington state, the feds have a significantly more relaxed attitude than their D.C. brethren. Jeff Sullivan, chief of the criminal division of the Western Washington U.S. attorney's office, says that not one federal case has been brought against a medical marijuana operation since the law's passage. "With limited resources, we are looking at large-scale trafficking and not medical marijuana," Sullivan says.

Hiatt and Graves' problems could, instead, be more home-grown, and that's eating Hiatt up. His client's destiny is in the hands of Seattle police and the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The Graves case currently sits on the desk of Erin Becker. She's chair of the drug unit at King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng's office. It was forwarded to prosecutors almost 10 months ago.

"I think SPD and other agencies recognize that this is a law the people have chosen, and we want to be careful and look at each case on an individual basis," says Becker. She says she is close to reaching a decision on whether to bring charges against Graves. If charges are brought, it will be the first against a group grow in King County, Becker says.

"It's very clear" that state law doesn't allow for group grows such as the one Graves' Earth Family Ministries had in the University District, she says. "You can't grow for 10 patients."

But she says she has to balance that against whether there were obvious signs of a commercial operation on 12th Avenue Northeast. Like neighbors seeing visitors at all hours. Like detailed financial bookkeeping. Like 1-inch by 1-inch dime baggies in the living room, say.

"The amount of marijuana enforcement we are doing is very low," says Capt. Steve Brown, head of SPD's narcotics unit. He points to the local 2003 Initiative 75, passed by voters, which makes marijuana SPD's lowest enforcement priority, as well as to the general depolicing of pot in the city over the last decade.

"We are staying pretty busy with street-level dealing activity," says Brown—mostly crack, meth, and heroin. "If we've got a legitimate patient, we are not going to spend our time on that."

Both Becker and Brown agree that state law is vague on the question of group grows and ought to be clarified. "That would help hugely," says Becker.

Even the state attorney general's office agrees that the law is flawed, especially on the question of group grows.

"I can't give you a 'yes it's legal, no they are illegal' kind of answer," says Scott Marlow, an assistant attorney general in the criminal justice division. "The law's too vague and can be applied a few different ways." He favors some kind of legislative fix.

"Everyone just wants something we can use," he says.

Meanwhile, Hiatt is back in the minivan, shooting north on Highway 99 to see another patient in a pickle. But there's more news on the cell phone, about an employee at the Evergreen State College, shitcanned after revealing his status as a medical marijuana patient. He was, according to Hiatt, fired for being under the influence.

"Messy and ugly and a disaster?" Hiatt says to the attorney on the other end of the line. "Of course, it's my kind of case. It's the kind of thing I get all the time."

Hiatt's taxable income in 2005 was $26,700 in grant money, less income than when he was a public defender. The grant comes from the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.–based reform group principally funded by Progressive Insurance founder Peter Lewis. Hiatt sometimes supplements that with standard criminal-defense work. He's clearly made some money—he owns six guitars, including two Giffins, custom-built six-strings, and rents a home with his girlfriend in Green Lake.

But eight years after medical marijuana became legal in Washington, weed is still a touchy issue in medical circles. Officials at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center wouldn't make doctors available for an interview. And it took a week of badgering before the University of Washington Medical Center and the UW-run Harborview Medical Center would discuss policies on medical marijuana.

Scott Barnhart, medical director of Harborview, says that medical marijuana hardly ever comes up as an issue on Pill Hill and that it's rarely recommended by physicians.

"You're kidding?" says Hiatt. "Has he ever seen the Madison Clinic?" That's a Harborview-run AIDS clinic. "There are tons of patients there, and most of them use marijuana."

By his own estimate, Hiatt reckons he's worked as many as 100 medical marijuana cases in the past three years, often negotiating with prosecutors to get charges dropped against chronically ill patients.

"I don't know how many people I've represented who are now dead," he says, referring to many AIDS patients. "You sure don't choose work like this. It chooses you. Things are screwed up. It's Chinatown."

pdawdy@seattleweekly.com

[budman]

Medical pot: legal, but still under wraps

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Seattle Times
August 18, 2006




<table class=posttable align=right width=260><tr><td class=postcell><img src=bin/stanford-paul.jpg width=260></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Paul Stanford runs The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation clinic in Bellevue, where he works with patients who want medical-marijuana authorizations.</td></tr></table>Every week, the ad runs on the front page of the Little Nickel:

<i>If you have:

Chronic pain, chronic nausea, muscle spasms, seizures, cancer, AIDS

Medical Marijuana may help.

Call the number in the ad and you'll find a local clinic where, for a fee, a doctor will write a note saying he believes the illegal plant will help what ails you.</i>

Not long ago, such a business plan likely would have the cops asking a lot of questions. But for two years, The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation has been operating the Bellevue clinic completely aboveground, seeing thousands of patients.

It has Washington's 1998 medical-marijuana initiative to thank for that. The law, approved by 59 percent of voters, said people with certain debilitating conditions could use marijuana so long as their doctor said it could help.

The biggest question has always been this: How is a sick person supposed to get the stuff?

"People in the government want the pot fairy to come deliver it," said Douglas Hiatt, a lawyer who crusades on behalf of medical-marijuana patients.

He laments — curses, actually — that medical marijuana still isn't a part of the mainstream, that sick people with doctors' authorizations are still getting charged with crimes, that some police officers don't even remember that the law was passed.

And he is not alone. Organizers of the 15th annual Seattle Hempfest, which runs Saturday and Sunday at Myrtle Edwards Park, have the same complaints.

Despite the problems, however, patients are finding their way to marijuana. Over the past eight years patients and entrepreneurs have pieced together an ad hoc network of products and services ranging from cookbooks to co-ops to classes that help patients get their voter-approved medicine.

<table class=posttable align=right width=260><tr><td class=postcell>
<center><b><span class=postbold>Washington's medical-marijuana law</span></b></center>
<span class=postbold>The law</span>: Passed by voters in 1998, it says qualifying patients and their caregivers may not be punished in state courts for growing or using marijuana. The law limits patients to a 60-day supply and does not permit the sale of marijuana.

<span class=postbold>Qualifying medical conditions</span>: Include cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, glaucoma, Crohn's disease, hepatitis C, intractable pain or any illness that causes nausea, vomiting, appetite loss, cramping, seizures or muscle spasms.</td></tr></table>Parts of this world are discussed only in whispers. Others are quite open.

None is perfect.


<b><span class=postbold>Bare-bones operation</span></b>

Ask Hiatt about The Hemp and Cannabis (THC) Foundation's Bellevue clinic — the only one of its kind in the Puget Sound area — and he'll roll his eyes. "Pothead capitalists," he calls them. "Doc-in-the-box."

Indeed, if you look around the clinic, that's pretty much what it seems. You won't find any examining tables. There's not much aside from several dozen chairs, piles of file folders and buckets of pens.

That's really all you need for the business model devised by Paul Stanford, president of the nonprofit that oversees clinics in Washington, Hawaii, Oregon and Colorado. Altogether they've seen 14,000 patients in four years, he said.

The organization's financial filings for 2003 show revenue of $352,000 — and for most of that year, its only operation was in Oregon.

"It just kind of snowballed and we're doing pretty well," he said.

A marijuana advocate since the 1980s, Stanford of Portland long ago realized that a lot of doctors are skeptical of marijuana. Providing a friendly doctor, he thought, would fill a niche. He placed an ad and soon hired Dr. Thomas "Tim" Orvald, a heart surgeon from Yakima.

Stanford's clinics do not provide marijuana. Instead, they exist solely to provide doctor's notes for patients who qualify.

A good chunk of their business comes from the 1-inch ad in the Little Nickel.

On a typical day, Orvald sees 30 to 40 patients. (The clinic is open just one or two days a week.) Patients first must show medical records that prove they've been diagnosed with one of the conditions covered under the law. They'll fill out a bunch of paperwork and watch a video that provides information on everything from growing marijuana to jury-rigging a heat gun and a dimmer switch to make a pot vaporizer.

Then a nurse gives a brief physical. Finally, the patient sees Orvald, who after confirming the patient has a standing diagnosis that's covered under the law, writes a letter stating he or she could be helped by marijuana. The charge is $150 to $200, depending on income, although Stanford said they see some low-income patients free of charge.

Patients are also provided a list of organizations that might help them find pot.

"There are about a dozen different quasi-legal/illegal organizations in the state who are doing dispensaries," Stanford said. Quasi-legal? "They're selling marijuana but the police turn a blind eye to it."

Seattle police Capt. Steven Brown said officers know it's going on. But "we haven't been involved in that, quite honestly, in terms of priorities."


<b><span class=postbold>Patients band together</span></b>

Green Cross. Emerald Cross. The Wormhole.

These are just a few of the patient-run clubs throughout Washington.

Commonly called co-ops, they bring patients together to get their "medicine." Exactly how that's done usually isn't discussed openly.

That's because it's easy to run afoul of Washington's medical-marijuana law. It doesn't legalize the sale of marijuana, even to qualified patients. And patients can grow it only for themselves. The exception is that patients can designate a caregiver, who can grow for them and only them.

This leaves the co-ops playing a game of semantics. Patients don't buy their marijuana; they make donations. Growers don't sell it; they're patients helping other patients. Even the larger-scale operations are labeled "P-patches," where several patients tend to the crop.

The co-ops have helped thousands of patients. But to some, this route isn't all that comforting. Hiatt said one Seattle P-patch was busted by police last year; prosecutors are still deciding whether to file charges.

In addition, patients say they're sometimes provided poor-quality marijuana; some complain about "moldy pot." Quantities are variable.

Mark Wachter, a 46-year-old multiple-sclerosis patient from Renton who uses the drug to battle constant pain, has encountered all of that.

"You feel pain coming on, and you know a lot's riding on this coming through," he said.

Meanwhile, all the patients want is a straightforward way to get what the voters said they could have.

"The frustrating part to me is being a sick person and having to go out and find my medicine," Wachter said. "It's not like you can go to Bartell's."


<b><span class=postbold>Misunderstandings</span></b>

This is where Steve Sarich, a relative newcomer to the Washington medical-marijuana scene, is filling another niche. Along the way, he made some interesting discoveries about the way the law is enforced.

<table class=posttable align=right width=260><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/sarich-steve.jpg width=260></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Steve Sarich of Everett, executive director of CannaCare, with one of the clone marijuana plants he's grown for people who need marijuana for medical reasons. Sarich wants to work with law enforcement on clarifying the amount allowed under the state's medical-marijuana law.</td></tr></table>A 55-year-old with short hair and a phone that's constantly ringing, he does not look like the stereotypical marijuana user. Degenerative disc disease led him to use marijuana to ease the pain in his back. Now he's leading an advocacy group called CannaCare.

"Our goal is to get these patients up and self-sufficient," he said. He does that by teaching classes on marijuana growing and supplying starter plants.

"You don't have to take a class to get a plant from us, but we make it so cost-effective," he said.

Sarich also grows his own — in considerable quantity. Visit his garden and he'll brag about his team of volunteers who care for the plants.

Plants in different rooms range from 2-inch clones to 4-foot-tall specimens that are nearly ready to produce usable buds.

Sarich got motivated last year when he heard about another organization like his that was broken up by Seattle police. That's when he first learned of the department's rule that medical-marijuana patients are limited to growing nine plants.

Sarich and a friend decided to survey law-enforcement agencies around the state to see how they were enforcing the law. The responses ran the gamut.

"A medical-marijuana law has not been passed," Yakima County Sheriff Kenneth Irwin wrote in a February e-mail response.

Another county said the limit is five plants; a third said it's 27.

To Sarich and others, this is a big problem.

The 1998 medical-marijuana law never specified a limit on plants. Instead, it limited patients to a 60-day supply, but that quantity has never been defined.

Sarich thinks the law should be clarified so patients can be assured that they're legal. He proposes a dry-weight limit of 24 ounces — with no limit on plants — and has been talking to law enforcement and others about his idea.

Mostly, it seems, he's itching for a fight.


<b><span class=postbold>"Access is the gap"</span></b>

Dominic Holden has been working for 12 years on medical-marijuana issues and is a spokesman for Hempfest. He's heard all the arguments: about the 60-day supply, the lack of access for patients, the differences in enforcement from county to county.

In fact, he was a sponsor of I-75, which in 2003 made marijuana enforcement the lowest law-enforcement priority in Seattle, and he has supported other legislation to clarify the medical-marijuana law.

Washington's medical-marijuana law, he said, "isn't as strong as it could be."

Here's an analogy Holden likes to use: Imagine if a doctor prescribed you penicillin but you had to somehow find it on the street — or make it yourself.

"Having access to medical marijuana is the gap in all of this," he said. "If people really knew the trauma the patients go through, there would be a different attitude."

<hr class=postrule>
Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

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Monday, August 21, 2006

Advocates for legalizing marijuana tout the benefits at Hempfest

By MIKE LEWIS
P-I REPORTER
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img src=bin/hempfest_2006.jpg width=300></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, addresses the crowd from the main stage at the 15th annual Hempfest at Myrtle Edwards Park. (August 20, 2006)</td></tr></table>Former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper doesn't have dreadlocks, a Zig-Zag T-shirt or a single Phish album. He just sounds like it.

"It's laughable when people say we are winning the drug war," said Stamper, who had just finished a main-stage speech to the crowd gathered Sunday at the Seattle Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park. "The people who are prosecuting the drug war are invested psychically and financially. It's a holy war for them.

"We should legalize all drugs."

While the comments might be unusual for most law enforcement careerists, they are nothing new for Stamper, who was Seattle's top cop from 1994 to 2000. That is why organizers brought him in for the popular two-day, pro-pot festival.

Organizers estimated 150,000 people flowed into the waterfront park, which for the weekend turned into a dense village of food booths, stages, arts-and-crafts sellers, hemp product manufacturers, leafleteers, hackysack circles and picnickers.

Now in its 15th year, Hempfest is at its core all about decriminalizing marijuana. So is Stamper, especially after years of witnessing firsthand what he sees as the futility of the federal drug war.

The drugs are winning, he said. It's time to change tactics.

"Police should be focused on violent crime," he told the crowd.

Stamper, a member of pro-legalization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said many of his peers agree with him but will only say so privately. He told a story about a recent chat with a police chief in a "major American city" who had read Stamper's 2005 book, "Breaking Rank."

In it, Stamper advocates legalizing and regulating drugs as a way to reduce collateral problems such as addiction, violence and property crime.

"He came up to me after a talk and said he agreed with the chapter on drugs," Stamper said. "I asked, 'Can I quote you publicly?'

"He said, 'What have you been smoking?' "

Stamper saw similar reticence Sunday, as he preached to the choir in the sunny, 90-degree heat.

Waiting for hand-dipped ice-cream bars in the festival's munchie midway, Seattleites Tony Witherspoon, 31, and Neil Toland, 28, said they don't see pot as a rip in society's fabric.

"I wouldn't think a little weed is going to hurt anybody," Witherspoon said.

Added Toland, "There needs to be a little space for (pot)."

Creating that political space is what the festival is all about, chief organizer Dominic Holden said.

Hempfest has matured over the decade and a half it's existed, he said. Initially, it went unnoticed by local police. Then, Holden recalled, it became tense and even adversarial between organizers and police in the late 1990s -- at a time when Stamper was chief.

"For a while there, it seemed like it would go downhill," Holden said. "They were doing backstage raids looking for pot. They didn't find any."

Since then, the political landscape has changed, Holden said.

First, state voters approved medical marijuana. Subsequently, Seattle residents said they are not worried about pot as a law enforcement issue.

Now, he said, the relationship is much more mellow.

"We all want it to be a safe festival," Holden said. "The police have been great. Very collaborative.

"This might be our biggest festival ever."

P-I reporter Mike Lewis can be reached at 206-448-8140 or mikelewis@seattlepi.com.

[palmspringsbum]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER


Politics as usual is exactly the problem
Thursday, October 19, 2006

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON JR.
P-I COLUMNIST

Officially, it was the big Senate debate.

Unofficially, the television show could have been titled, "Which Rich Person Wants to Go to Washington?"

The powdered faces of incumbent Maria Cantwell, GOP challenger Mike McGavick and long shot Libertarian Bruce Guthrie formed the cast of millionaire Senate hopefuls.

As Tuesday's broadcast filled television sets, at one home, on Seattle's Beacon Hill, the telling image wasn't of the three candidates.

It was of a lonely man watching from his couch, his reflection bouncing off the faces of the candidates on the screen.

This man had plenty to say about politics -- just no bright lights beamed at him, no forum in which to say it.

Aaron Dixon, the Green Party's candidate for Senate, was on the outside, looking in.

"What's she smoking?" Dixon, 57, snapped at the screen. He was referring to Cantwell, who mentioned that Iraq's government must take responsibility for security.

"What she is asking for will never happen -- that Iraqi troops will be able to secure the country," Dixon said. "They haven't been able to do it yet."

Farah Nousheen, his wife, walked over and sat next to him. Close by were baby toys and a Happy Cabana playpen for the couple's newborn.

Dixon's running commentary offered an unofficial soundtrack to a debate that without strong rebuttals ended up being a real snoozer.

The talk could have used a dash of Green. Dixon failed to raise more than $1 million -- his campaign war chest is around $60,000, he says. That, along with Dixon having no previous Senate history, were among the reasons he was disqualified from the televised chat.

When the debate touched on North Korea and nukes, Dixon sighed. "If the U.S. were really concerned about nuclear proliferation, we would begin reducing our stockpile of nuclear weapons and Israel's," Dixon said. "We have to lead by example."

Talk turned to Social Security. Dixon said the system should be left alone. It's better, he said, to get the national deficit under control so that money will be around for people in the future.

On abortion, Dixon said Roe v. Wade should stand, leaving women with the freedom to choose.

He edged closer to the TV screen when immigration came up. "Our immigration problem can be solved by creating a more-just foreign policy," Dixon turned to tell me. "We need a trade agreement that works for the benefit of Third World and developing countries, so that their economies are stable."

The problem now?

"It's a policy of American corporate interests," he said. "It's led to the exploitation of nations in the developing world. You can build all the walls you want but as long as this foreign policy remains the same, it is not going to stop the flow of immigrants coming here for money."

His eyes widened when McGavick touted his success as Safeco CEO, citing it as a qualification to be senator. Dixon and his wife looked at each other. They cracked up: Do we really want the country to be run like a giant insurance corporation?

"He's a slick politician, or he wants to be," Dixon said of McGavick. "He says a lot of things that are just irresponsible."

Like calling for testing welfare mothers for drugs.

"I say we test congressmen and senators and corporate executives for drugs," Dixon quipped.

During the debate, Cantwell ducked on whether marijuana, a drug with proven medical benefits, should be legalized. "She wasn't brave enough to take that stand even though that's the stand that's right to take. It is a humanitarian stand," Dixon said.

Most of Dixon's thoughts were offered in a measured, professorial tone that jousts with the expected image of an ex-Black Panther.

Dixon on a gay marriage ban: "Heck no, people should have a right to marry who they want."

On Iraq: "I don't think soldiers should sacrifice for an illegal war that may have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

On futility? He paused.

Is he fighting a futile battle, I asked?

He can't even get into the debate. He's a Green and that means fringe status.

And earlier Tuesday, Dixon was arrested for peacefully trying to enter the studio where the Senate debate was being taped. He says a police officer twisted his right hand.

"Futility?" he repeated softly, tugging on the bandage wrapping his hand.

"I didn't run because I thought I would win. I wanted to bring attention to the need for a multiparty system. People are tired and fed up because the Democrats and the Republicans are not paying attention to the people. I want to bring a different voice to the political arena."

This brother outsider, this self-proclaimed man of the people, is trying to be a voice that matters.

Is anybody listening?

<hr class=postrule>
P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER


Thursday, October 26, 2006 · Last updated 8:07 a.m. PT

Man with MS again charged with growing marijuana in Cheney

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHENEY, Wash. -- A man who uses marijuana to relieve symptoms of multiple sclerosis has been charged a second time with illegal pot production.

According to documents filed in Spokane County Superior Court, sheriff's deputies went to the home of Samuel Dean Diana, 57, in search of a fugitive in July. They didn't find the fugitive but did discover 79 marijuana plants outside Diana's home and in his garage, prosecutors wrote.

Diana, who relies on a wheelchair, showed the deputies a note from Dr. Walter W. Balek of Spokane Valley that said he has MS and that he had discussed therapeutic use of marijuana with the doctor.

Also charged was Gene Arthur Midkiff Jr., 43, who helps Diana and lives in a trailer next to the house. Both made preliminary court appearances last week.

According to court filings, Midkiff told investigators he helped Diana grow the pot in exchange for a share of the harvest.

Under an initiative approved by Washington state voters in 1998, people with MS and other specified medical conditions may possess as much as a 60-day supply of marijuana if a doctor says it might help, and a caregiver may help grow the marijuana is still barred from using any of the drug.

The law doesn't specify what constitutes a 60-day supply, nor is there any protection from federal statutes that outlaw marijuana use, possession, manufacture or trafficking.

In December 1997 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents reported finding 175 pot plants, 15 pounds of processed pot , scales, packaging material and $50,000 in cash at Diana's home.

Two years later, after Diana pleaded guilty to maintaining a home for drug manufacturing, use and storage, he was sentenced to six months under house arrest. Three co-defendants also accepted plea agreements and were given similar sentences.

[palmspringsbum]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER


Medical marijuana law leave patients, police in a fog

<span class=postbigbold>State regulation criticized on both sides of drug divide</span>

Monday, November 13, 2006

By CLAUDIA ROWE
P-I REPORTER

In her spacious suburban home, Robin DeBow cleans countertops until they gleam, vacuums the carpets to plush perfection and then turns toward her most pressing chore -- tending the large pot plant budding in her sunny front room.

It's a job DeBow has fought for years to perform. Though not a marijuana user herself, the 44-year-old Lewis County woman has been authorized to provide the potent herb to her son, Chris Chastain, a 27-year-old paraplegic.


<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/debow-robin.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Robin DeBow helps son Chris Chastain light his bong filled with marijuana at their home in Winlock. Chastain was severely injured in a car accident and was authorized to use marijuana for medical reasons. His mother was growing it at home for him -- until she got busted. </td></tr></table>Yet despite a state law permitting use of marijuana in certain medical cases -- as well as permission from two doctors -- DeBow was charged with manufacture of a controlled substance in August and faced up to five years in prison.

She's not alone. Legal advocates estimate that in the past five years, at least 100 Washington residents authorized to use or provide marijuana have been charged with drug crimes. Some have done jail time. Others have drained their savings paying for lawyers.

In 1998, when the citizens initiative passed with 59 percent of the popular vote, prosecutors and police made clear their misgivings. To law enforcement, the state's Medical Marijuana Act -- with its imprecise language, gaps in logic and potential for abuse -- was a miserable tangle. Eight years later, many of Washington's 5,000 marijuana-approved patients agree. Eleven states have such statutes on the book, but medical marijuana advocates say Washington's is the worst.

"Anybody who's tried to apply this law has run into problems," said Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng. "It's the collision of two worlds: the medical world and the criminal justice world."

Paul Stanford, executive director of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, finds himself in unlikely agreement -- albeit from the opposite side. "Of all the states that have medical marijuana, Washington protects patients the least," he said.

Much of the problem stems from wording that allows police broad latitude in determining just how much pot a patient is allowed. In Seattle, prosecutors have decided that means nine plants and some dried bud. In Yakima, it's zero. The inconsistency has become so troublesome that pot advocates have recently joined with police, the American Civil Liberties Union and at least one legislator to work on amending the law.

DeBow's ordeal began Thanksgiving weekend 2001, when her son, then 22, was in a car that crashed into another on a rainy road and was then run over by a semi. His resulting injuries left the one-time athlete unable to move, speak or feed himself for months.

DeBow quit her job as a trucker to spend every day at Chastain's side, doling out dozens of prescription painkillers, muscle relaxants and anti-spasmodics as he became increasingly depressed.

After six months, without appetite and down to a wraithlike weight, Chastain asked his mother to inquire about marijuana. A physician and researcher at the University of Washington authorized him to use it a few months later.

"Medical marijuana saved our lives," DeBow said. "It helps Chris sleep. It helps him with shakes so he can feed himself. It made it so that he could cope, and when he copes better, we all cope better."

Others had a less sanguine reaction. When DeBow took pictures documenting her new pot-growing operation and sent the film to Wal-Mart for development, the store immediately notified law enforcement. To an average person's eye, the snapshots of Chastain sitting and grinning next to massive, budding plants might indeed look damning.

But when deputies knocked on DeBow's door in early 2005, she promptly showed them into her grow room -- with Chastain's authorization hanging nearby.

"I never hid it," she said. "I didn't have anything to hide."

Few of the plants, just cuttings sprouting in small pots, had produced usable buds at that point. But officers believed DeBow had too many, nonetheless. Also, by embedding some in her outdoor garden, DeBow had violated prohibitions against cultivating pot publicly. The deputies confiscated more than 100 plants and left 24 behind. Beyond what those could produce, DeBow would have to buy pot for her son on the street.

Ten months later, the deputies returned, saying that a tipster had remarked at the "high traffic" coming in and out of the large, ranch-style home. DeBow, who had replenished her plant supply, was again told that she had too many.

Further, Chastain was not the discreet user some might have wished. Two dolls modeled after the pothead heroes Cheech and Chong sat in his bedroom over a bedspread printed with an enormous marijuana leaf. A poster headed with the words "You Know You're a Stoner When ..." hung above it.

On top of that, officers said DeBow failed to show current authorization to grow for him (renewal is required annually).

But the papers appeared, and Lewis County Prosecutor Jeremy Randolph was unable to prove that DeBow had actually done anything illegal. Last month, he dropped the case.

"It's absurd the way the law is being treated by sheriffs and prosecutors and judges in state court -- just really tragic," said DeBow's lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, who is juggling similar cases from Kelso to Grays Harbor County to Everett. Each week, a half-dozen new medical marijuana clients call, asking for help.

"Judges have done things like put an AIDS patient in jail, things that just make you sick," Hiatt said.


<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/denny_margaret.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Margaret Denny, left, and Beth Rice protest against the arrest of pot-using patients at a rally near the Department of Health and Human Services offices in Seattle this month. (November 13, 2006)</td></tr></table>

Problematically, the law allows possession of marijuana but makes no provision for obtaining it, forcing patients or caregivers to buy from drug dealers, which is illegal. Nor does it specify exactly how much marijuana a person may hold.

Further, it puts the burden on patients to prove they are legitimate users.

"So even if you are authorized and you have your paperwork, you can still be arrested, charged with a crime and made to go all the way through the criminal justice process to a trial before you can establish that medical marijuana defense and be acquitted," said Alison Holcomb, a defense attorney and director of the Washington ACLU's new Marijuana Education Project, which gives the public information about marijuana laws.

Holcomb, Hiatt and officials from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs met recently with state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who has tried repeatedly to amend the law.

"When people think about voting on a bill that has 'marijuana' in the title, some of our more conservative legislators have a very difficult time with it," she said. "They think it could come back to haunt them."

There are a number of possible fixes, each with benefits and potential risk: Creating a registry of medically approved users would help law enforcement, but could present privacy problems. Allowing group-grows, where patients could legally obtain their treatments, might be another -- though that may clash with federal drug laws. Easier, perhaps, would be clarifying exactly how much pot falls under the law's stated limit of a "60-day supply."

"I don't know what a 60-day supply is -- what's a 60-day supply of gasoline to somebody that's driving an old beater truck versus somebody driving a hybrid?" said David Thompson, chief criminal deputy in the Yakima County Sheriff's Office, who wishes the law would be repealed.

Like many law enforcement officers, he believes it was simply the first milepost in a march toward outright legalization.

"The activists' plan of attack was to play on the sympathy of the voters by calling it a medical initiative," Thompson said. "And they were successful. But it sent a bad signal. When you talk to kids at junior high school about the harm that marijuana does, they can't quite understand it. They say, 'but they legalized it for sick people.' "

Confusing matters further, a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that medical marijuana is not a valid defense in federal court.

For prosecutors, the trick is separating legitimate users from those who use medical claims to cloak illegal activity. But at times, the two may overlap. Last Thursday, Kenneth Stone of Vashon Island was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges.

Government lawyers described him as the ringleader of a large pot-dealing operation that included 800 plants and a half-dozen people. But Stone and several of his co-defendants say they had a doctor's permission to use the drug.

"We do not consider this a medical marijuana case," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. "There was an attempt to use medical marijuana status as shield, but that was inappropriate. The amount of marijuana involved was far beyond what any personal use for a medical condition would be."

Federal law puts marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD, listing them as drugs with no medicinal value. But Steve Newman, who has multiple sclerosis, insists the government is misguided. He sat, gaunt but resolute, in a wheelchair outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building in Seattle recently, rallying to make the drug available to the truly sick. On the days he is without it, Newman said, his physical condition is close to unbearable. Still, fear of prosecution has discouraged him from growing his own.

"Look at us -- we're all in wheelchairs, and we need help," he said, gesturing toward about 25 other gathered patients. "We need a place we can legally go to get medical marijuana. Otherwise, we're at the mercy of drug dealers."

Robin DeBow understands that well. Weary of growing more than a plant or two after two raids by sheriff's deputies, she has been forced to turn to friends, acquaintances and street dealers to keep her son medicated. The state law hasn't solved her problems.

"I wish it was written so the police would just leave patients alone," she said. "They're not doctors -- they don't know how much Chris needs. ... I really believe that should be left for his doctors to decide. Beyond that, it's none of their business."

<span class=postbold>POT LAW CONTROVERSY GROWS</span>

Several areas of the state's Medical Marijuana Act have caused problems for police, prosecutors and patients. At least one legislator is working to amend the law.
<p align=center><img src=bin/washington_law_1.gif></p>
The law allows for possession of marijuana, but does not specify how the patient is supposed to get it. "Assisting with the medical use of marijuana" doesn't give much direction.
<p align=center><img src=bin/washington_law_2.gif></p>
Similar to a self-defense argument in cases of homicide, this section allows patients to use their medical approval as a legal defense -- though this would be impermissible in federal court.
<p align=center><img src=bin/washington_law_3.gif></p>
The "60-day supply" is among the most problematic parts of the law. Needs vary from patient to patient. But currently, law enforcement determines what constitutes a 60-day supply -- with considerable differences from county to county.
<p align=center><img src=bin/washington_law_4.gif></p>
Primary caregivers are allowed to provide pot to only one patient, an inefficient system, say critics. They prefer the idea of "group-grows" with a client list. Such operations in California have clashed with federal drug laws.

<hr class=postrule>
<small>P-I reporter Claudia Rowe can be reached at 206-448-8320 or claudiarowe@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer</small>

[palmspringsbum]

Wednesday, November 22, 2006 · Last updated 9:00 a.m. PT

State Supreme Court upholds conviction in medical marijuana case

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The state Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Skamania County woman who used marijuana to relieve chronic pain.

In the 6-3 decision today the court said Sharon Lee Tracy failed to prove that she qualified under Washington's medical marijuana law -- Initiative 692, which passed in 1998. She had a California medical marijuana card but it was not entered as part of the evidence.

Tracy was convicted of possession and manufacture of marijuana.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge James Johnson says the court should have recognized voter intent for the compassionate use of marijuana.

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Wash Court: Out-of-state docs can't recommend medical marijuana

11/22/2006

By RACHEL LA CORTE / Associated Press
kgw.com

A voter-approved initiative allowing doctors to recommend medicinal marijuana does not apply to cases where the doctor is licensed outside of the state of Washington, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

"The initiative could have, but did not, define a qualifying doctor as one with a valid license from any state," Justice Tom Chambers wrote in the 6-3 majority decision.

Initiative 692 passed in 1998 with 59 percent of the vote. It gives doctors the right to recommend — but not prescribe — marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other conditions that cause "intractable pain."

Marijuana is still illegal to buy and sell. It's listed in the same class of drugs as heroin and LSD. Possession of pot is allowed under I-692, but state law does not say how people can obtain it in the first place.

In its decision, the high court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the conviction of Sharon Tracy, who had been charged with possession and manufacture of marijuana.

Tracy suffers from a hip deformity and migraine headaches, and has had a series of corrective surgeries following a ruptured colon and bowel conditions, according to court records.

She was arrested in May 2003 after police arrived at her home to investigate a domestic violence complaint. While there, police smelled marijuana and after returning with a search warrant, found just over an ounce of marijuana, four marijuana plants, and a California medical marijuana card.

A few months after the arrest, she obtained another medical card from a doctor in Portland, Ore., the closest large city across the border from her home in Stevenson, Wash.

The judge at her trial in Skamania County would not let her use the compassionate use defense allowed under I-692, because she was not found to be a "qualified" candidate because the card in her possession at the time of her arrest was not issued by a doctor who was formally licensed to practice medicine in Washington state.

The trial court entered a finding that the authorization received by the Oregon doctor met Washington's requirements, but it was not able to be used in court because the card was received after her arrest, Tracy's attorney said.

Peter Banks, the prosecuting attorney for Skamania County, said the language in the initiative was clear.

"The factual situation was such that she was neither a qualifying patient nor was the card issued by a qualified doctor in the state of Washington," he said.

Tracy, 53, has been living in Hayward, Calif., since 2004 to care for her elderly mother.

"I had never been in any trouble before," she said. "I didn't know that it would go this far."

Schultz said that at the time of her arrest, she was traveling back and forth between the two states because of her family situation, which is why she got the card from California in the first place.

She said that some of her health problems had to do with the pain medication she had been on for years, which is why the doctor switched her to medicinal marijuana.

"Had the California doctor prescribed her Vicodin and Soma or anything like that, the prescription would have been legal. She could have filled it at any Washington pharmacy," said David Schultz, Tracy's attorney. "I have a lot of trouble seeing the difference, especially in light of what the initiative stands for."

Schultz said his client, who had not served any jail time pending the appeal, now faces up to 90 days in jail. He said he hasn't yet decided whether to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but said Tracy should not be in jail.

"Her health condition is worsening," he said.

Tracy said that she's had some recent heart conditions, and has a pacemaker, and the thought of having to go to jail, "makes me very, very sad, and very scared."

Dr. Rob Killian, a Seattle physician who sponsored I-692, said he was disappointed by the ruling.

"One would have hoped that the intent of the law, which was to protect valid patients from prosecution, would have trumped the logistics or the letter of the law," he said.

In his dissent, Justice Jim Johnson agreed.

The "majority decision deprives Sharon Tracy of the protections afforded by the people through this legislation, and allows her to be convicted of a crime for exercising that privilege," Johnson wrote, joined by Justices Richard Sanders and Barbara Madsen.

Johnson notes that the official ballot title and the voters pamphlet before the 1998 election "communicated state permission for medical marijuana, with doctor advice."

"The majority offers no persuasive rationale for holding that the people of Washington understood, let alone intended, that an otherwise qualified patient would be excluded from protection by I-692 simply because the patient's treating physician was licensed in California or Oregon rather than Washington," he wrote.

[palmspringsbum]

Woman may be jailed for pot use

Washington Court: California medical marijuana card won't protect patient

By Rachel La Corte, Associated Press
The Daily Review
Article Last Updated: 11/26/2006 08:21:16 AM PST

Her California medical marijuana card will not protect a Hayward woman from going to jail for a marijuana charge in Washington state, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

Sharon Tracy, 53, had a California medical marijuana card when she was arrested at her Stevenson, Wash., home in 2003 on a drug charge. She moved back to Hayward in 2004.

But a voter-approved initiative in Washington allowing doctors to recommend medicinal marijuana does not apply to cases in which the doctor is licensed outside of the state, the court ruled.

"The initiative could have, but did not, define a qualifying doctor as one with a valid license from any state," Justice Tom Chambers wrote in the 6-3 majority decision.

Washington's Initiative 692 passed in 1998 with 59 percent of the vote. It gives doctors the right to recommend — but notprescribe — marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other conditions that cause "intractable pain."

Marijuana is still illegal to buy and sell. It's listed in the same class of drugs as heroin and LSD. Possession of pot is allowed under I-692, but Washington state law does not say how people can obtain it in the first place.

In its decision, the high court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling that upheld Tracy's criminal conviction. She had been charged with possession and cultivation of marijuana.

Tracy suffers from a hip deformity and migraine headaches, and has had a series of corrective surgeries after a ruptured colon and bowel conditions, according to court records.

She was arrested in May 2003 after police arrived at her home to investigate a domestic-violence complaint. While there, police smelled marijuana and after returning with a search warrant, found just over an ounce of the drug, four marijuana plants, and a California medical marijuana card.

A few months after the arrest, she obtained another medical card from a doctor in Portland, Ore., the closest large city across the state line from her home in Stevenson, Wash.

Twelve states, including California and Oregon, have laws that legalize medical use of marijuana, though the laws vary in specifics.

The judge at Tracy's trial in Skamania County, Wash., would not let her use the compassionate-use defense allowed under I-692, because she was not found to be a "qualified" candidate because the card in her possession at the time of her arrest was not issued by a doctor who was formally licensed to practice medicine in Washington state.

The trial court entered a finding that the authorization received by the Oregon doctor met Washington's requirements, but it could not be used in court because the card was received after her arrest, Tracy's attorney said.

Peter Banks, the prosecuting attorney for Skamania County, said the language in the initiative was clear.

"The factual situation was such that she was neither a qualifying patient nor was the card issued by a qualified doctor in the state of Washington," he said.

Tracy has been living in Hayward since 2004 to care for her elderly mother.

"I had never been in any trouble before," she said. "I didn't know that it would go this far."

Schultz said that at the time of her arrest, she was traveling back and forth between the two states because of her family situation, which is why she got the card from California in the first place.

She said that some of her health problems had to do with the pain medication she had been on for years, which is why the doctor switched her to medicinal marijuana.

"Had the California doctor prescribed her Vicodin and Soma or anything like that, the prescription would have been legal. She could have filled it at any Washington pharmacy," said David Schultz, Tracy's attorney. "I have a lot of trouble seeing the difference, especially in light of what the initiative stands for."

Schultz said his client, who had not served any jail time pending the appeal, now faces up to 90 days in jail. He said he hasn't yet decided whether to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but said Tracy should not be in jail.

"Her health condition is worsening," he said.

Tracy said she has had some recent heart conditions and has a pacemaker, and the thought of having to go to jail "makes me very, very sad and very scared."

Dr. Rob Killian, a Seattle physician who sponsored I-692, said he was disappointed by the ruling.

"One would have hoped that the intent of the law, which was to protect valid patients from prosecution, would have trumped the logistics or the letter of the law," he said.

[palmspringsbum]

Monday, November 27, 2006

Medical Marijuana: Dopey decision

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD


The Washington Supreme Court, for hardly the first time in judicial history, has rendered a ruling that is at the same time legally correct and morally wrong.

Yes, as the court ruled Thursday, state law enacted by the 1998 passage of Initiative 692 does require that anyone mounting a "compassionate use" defense in a marijuana-related crime must meet specific criteria.

And, yes, Sharon Lee Tracy failed that test. The California doctor who approved her use of medical marijuana was not licensed in Washington and thus doesn't meet the I-692 standard.

The 6-3 majority also rejected Tracy's attempt at a Constitution-based defense, in part because she failed to produce a copy of her California medical marijuana card. "It appears," the court says, "that the card was never returned to her after the police seized it at the time of the original search." She couldn't make her case because the cops never gave her property back?

"While we are not without sympathy," Justice Tom Chambers intoned for the majority, "it is Tracy's responsibility as a petitioner to provide an adequate record for appellate review. ..."

Tracy "suffers from a hip deformity, migraine headaches, a series of eight corrective surgeries following a ruptured colon and bowel condition and has been disabled since 1998." But Skamania County insisted on prosecuting her for marijuana?

Where the cops and courts failed, lawmakers can succeed, by rewriting the law to recognize medical marijuana prescriptions from any licensed physician.

[palmspringsbum]

Patients With Out-Of-State Medi-Pot Docs Not Protected Under State's Marijuana Law, Washington Supreme Court Rules

November 30, 2006 - Olympia, WA, USA
NORML


<span class=postbold>Olympia, WA:</span> Washington's Supreme Court ruled 6-3 last week that patients who possess a recommendation to use medical cannabis from an out-of-state doctor may not be afforded legal protections under the state's eight-year-old medical marijuana law.

The decision upheld a lower court ruling convicting defendant Sharon Tracy on marijuana possession and manufacturing charges. Tracy was arrested in 2003 after police seized her California doctor's recommendation, four marijuana plants, and an ounce of marijuana from her home. Tracy had previously lived in California to take care of her terminally ill mother before returning to Washington in 2003.

Writing for the majority, Justice Tom Chambers opined, "[Although] Tracy may have been exactly the kind of patient the voters of this state had in mind when they enacted the medical marijuana initiative, I-692, in 1999, ... only qualifying patients are entitled to use the defense." The Court determined that 'qualifying patients' are defined under the law as only those patients who have been authorized to use medical cannabis by an in-state physician.

"The initiative could have, but did not, define a qualifying doctor as one with a valid license from any state," Chambers wrote.

In his dissent, Justice James Johnson argued that Washington voters clearly intended for citizens like Tracy to be protected under state law. "Initiatives susceptible to reasonable alternative interpretations, such as I-692, are to be construed in order to effectuate the intent of the electorate," he wrote. "The majority offers no persuasive rational for holding that the people of Washington understood, let alone intended, that an otherwise qualified patient would be excluded from protection by I-692 simply because the patient's treating physician was licensed in [a state other] than Washington."

Tracy may be sentenced to up to 90 days in jail for violating the state's marijuana laws.


<table class=posttable align=center width=90%><tr><td class=postcell>
For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, NORML Legal Counsel, at (202) 483-5500. A discussion of this decision is available online on the November 27, 2006 edition of NORML's daily AudioStash. Opinions in the case, <i>State v. Tracy</i>, are available online at: http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/index ... ons.recent.

</td></tr></table>

updated: Nov 30, 2006

[palmspringsbum]

Firefighters called to fight fire find pot plants

11:06 AM PST on Wednesday, December 27, 2006
KING5.com Staff

OLYMPIA - Firefighters arriving on the scene of a house fire in Thurston County on Tuesday night stumbled onto nearly 100 marijuana plants.

Fire crews arrived at the home at 3307 Wildolph Loop at about 11 p.m. While battling the flames, they found the plants.

Thurston County deputies seized 94 plants and growing equipment. A 43-year-old man who lives at the house said he has a medical prescription to use marijuana.

The case has been referred to the prosecutor's office and the man and another resident evacuated from the home could face drug charges.

The home was a complete loss. No injuries were reported

[palmspringsbum]

Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Agents raid medical marijuana advocacy office

<span class=postbigbold>Plants, computers and cash seized in Everett</span>

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/sarich_steve.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap><small>(Grant M. Haller / P-I)</small> Steve Sarich, executive director of CannaCare, says he's no drug dealer and that his group's funds support medical marijuana users.</td></tr></table>By CASEY MCNERTHNEY AND CLAUDIA ROWE
P-I REPORTERS
<blockquote>
<b>Note:</b> This story has been altered. The source of Steve Newman's marijuana was misstated in the original version.
</blockquote>
Drug enforcement agents raided the Everett headquarters of an advocacy group for medical marijuana patients, confiscating what police documents say was more than 1,000 plants and computers that the owners say contain personal information of about 200 men and women authorized to use the drug for medicinal purposes.

So far, no one has been arrested or charged with a crime.

Fearful of potential repercussions and unsure of the officers' ultimate aim, patients in the CannaCare network of marijuana users have been "laying low," said one, terrified that they may be prosecuted for using a substance authorized by their physicians.

"Who knows what they're doing with our information?" said Steve Newman, who has multiple sclerosis and has been using marijuana for two years. "It makes me concerned -- really, really concerned. But we're pretty helpless. Nobody can say much about it."

A detective assigned to the federally funded West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team, which launched Friday's raid, scoffed at the notion that CannaCare -- run out of the home of medical marijuana advocate Steve Sarich -- was anything other than a drug-dealing enterprise.

Detective Roy Alloway said it was "absurd" to think that the number of plants Sarich was tending would be covered by his medical authorization.

"It's clear that Sarich is a guy that's selling drugs," said Alloway, who noted that state law allows no more than a 60-day supply of marijuana for medical use.

The amount found in Sarich's home, he said, was "not even close."

Long a thorn in the side of law enforcement for his vocal, thumb-in-the-eye advocacy style, Sarich, 56, insists that the government is merely harassing patients -- himself included -- who have a legitimate right to use the drug for managing pain due to multiple sclerosis, cancer and a host of other illnesses.

Washington voters approved the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions through a citizens initiative in 1998.

"Since they don't like medical marijuana, this is an attack on the people that support it," said Sarich, who insists he's no drug dealer. The nominal sums CannaCare collects go into supporting medical marijuana users, he said.

Only a few ounces of pot were found in the raid, and Sarich said the bulk of the seized crop was unrooted cuttings and starter plants. He also said the $1,020 drug agents seized in the raid was for his $1,103.56 Snohomish County PUD bill.

The raid's ultimate end remains unclear. Alloway said he referred the information to federal authorities because of the pot-growing operation's size.

Jeff Eig, spokesman for the Seattle division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site that the DEA said federal agents had raided 11 medical marijuana outlets in Los Angeles on Wednesday and seized several thousand pounds of marijuana, along with weapons and money.

Washington law allows possession of marijuana in doctor-approved cases but makes no provision for obtaining it, forcing patients who cannot grow enough to buy from others -- sometimes resorting to patronizing street-corner dealers.

Sarich, however, has flouted the statute by announcing that CannaCare will provide pot plants to patients. He and an associate, John Worthington, whose Renton home was also raided last week, said the police action was politically motivated retaliation.

Sarich also believes that because the state has no list of registered medical marijuana patients, CannaCare was targeted because it has contact information for more than 1,200 users.

That incursion into patient privacy worries advocates at the American Civil Liberties Union at least as much as the bust itself.

Alison Chin Holcomb, director of the Washington ACLU's Marijuana Education Project, said Sarich might have forced the government into it.

"He certainly wasn't afraid of getting the attention of law enforcement," she said. "He put himself out there on the radar."

Worthington recently sent documents alleging drug-enforcement excesses by Alloway to the state House and Senate judiciary and health care committees. He sent another letter to the State Patrol, accusing the detective of tampering with evidence.

"They went after me because I'm an activist, and I've been terrorized out of growing," said Worthington, whose home contained six marijuana plants, according to a Kitsap County Sheriff's Office document. "I can't have my kids frisked like they're criminals. That was disgusting. I'm not Al Capone -- I'm a dad."

Alloway, who works for the Bremerton Police Department, denied the allegations of wrongdoing on Wednesday.

<small>P-I reporter Casey McNerthney can be reached at 206-448-8220 or caseymcnerthney@seattlepi.com.</small>

[palmspringsbum]

kitsapsun.com

Local Drug Unit Raids Medical Marijuana Organization

<span class=postbold>WestNET detectives seized about 1,500 plants last Friday from "Cannacare," stating the organization is less about distributing medicinal marijuana and more about "drug dealing."</span>

By JOSH FARLEY, jfarley@kitsapsun.com
January 18, 2007

Drug detectives from the Kitsap-based West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team seized about 1,500 marijuana plants from an Everett-based medicinal marijuana group Friday, in what will likely become a marquee case for the state's medical marijuana law.

The headquarters of Cannacare, whose mission is to be a "support group" for the state's medical marijuana users, was searched by the drug unit after WestNET detectives received a search warrant signed by a Kitsap County Superior Court Judge.

The seizure has angered Cannacare's members, who believe federal authorities are attempting to undermine the state's medical marijuana law, passed as an initiative by Washington voters in 1998.

"Rather than arresting the Director of CannaCare, Steve Sarich, and prosecuting him under the Washington State Medical Marijuana law as a patient, the Drug Enforcement Agency was called in to prosecute under federal law," said a blog entry under Cannacare's MySpace site.

Carlos Rodriguez, the sergeant in charge of WestNET, said issues concerning federal and state laws are irrelevant because what Sarich and CannaCare are suspected of doing is illegal.

Rodriguez said the Washington state law allows for a "60-day supply" and a maximum of 27 plants, if the plants are in different stages of life.

"But 1,500 plants for one person is ridiculous," Rodriguez said. "And you're not allowed (under the law) to sell it."

The case is being examined by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Charges against Sarich, who was not arrested in the raid, and other CannaCare members may be coming.

Computer registries with records of supposed medicinal marijuana patients were also seized, according to the search affidavit.

Copyright 2007, kitsapsun.com. All Rights Reserved.

[palmspringsbum]

The Herald - Everett, Wash. - www.HeraldNet.com
Published: Friday, January 19, 2007

Medical marijuana advocate fuming over raid on home

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/SteveSarich.jpg></td></tr></table>
By Jim Haley
Herald Writer



An Everett medical marijuana advocate is outraged that drug agents served a search warrant on his home, confiscated hundreds of marijuana plants, and took computers and other records.

Steve Sarich said those records contained personal information of about 200 people associated with his organization CannaCare.

The raid was Friday at his north Everett home, where he runs the organization. He gives marijuana starter plants to people eligible to use medical marijuana under state law.

"We don't sell any pot," Sarich said. "What they were doing is harassing us to get patient names. It was a political assassination."

Sarich has openly promoted marijuana use for medical purposes under the 1998 state initiative. The law allows patients to get a doctor recommendation for marijuana to ease pain or to aid them for a variety of illnesses, such as glaucoma, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Those patients are allowed to grow or possess a 60-day supply of marijuana, under the law.

The federal government doesn't recognize laws in 11 states that allow the use of medical marijuana.

Members of the Kitsap County-based West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents Friday served a search warrant at Sarich's home.

Simultaneously, a second warrant was served at the Renton home of Sarich associate John Worthington.

West Sound Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez said officers confiscated more than 1,500 marijuana plants, computers and plant-growing equipment from Sarich's residence. Six plants and some papers were taken from the Worthington home, according to search warrant documents.

Sarich said only a few ounces of marijuana were found at his home, and most of the items seized were cuttings and starter plants. Agents also took $1,020 that Sarich said was set aside to pay his Snohomish County PUD bill.

Worthington and Sarich accused the Kitsap County officers of retaliating for information that Worthington sent to the Legislature last week. Worthington has accused the Kitsap drug unit of circumventing the state medical marijuana law by turning marijuana cases over to federal authorities.

Kitsap officials wrote in court documents that they had a lead and a belief that they would find a large number of marijuana plants in the raids. Rodriguez said the case is still under investigation and he declined to comment further on it.

There have been no arrests, and no charges have been filed.

"Our intent is to disrupt mid- and upper-level marijuana manufacturers," Rodriguez said.

Pat Slack, commander of the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force, said he was told in advance about the raid and Kitsap officials assured him they didn't need help.

Worthington said he was directly associated with Canna- Care for about a year but has ceased active participation. He was afraid that authorities would come after Sarich, and he tried to avoid becoming involved, he added.

Steve Newman, a Bothell man associated with CannaCare, said he doesn't like it that records were taken.

"I feel kind of threatened about it," said Newman, a multiple sclerosis patient who has a doctor's permission to use marijuana. "I'm not a dealer. I'm an MS patient trying to get relief for my MS."

He said he's working with Sarich on producing a medical card for people who use marijuana to help with health problems. He was afraid that he would become a target when he got involved with CannaCare so he stopped using marijuana.

Confiscation of records and possible dissemination of medical information is something that bothers the ACLU, said Alison Holcomb, director of the state ACLU Marijuana Education Project.

"We're interested in what kind of protection we can offer them on the medical records," Holcomb said. "We'll see if there's some way we can obtain a (court) protective order."

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.




Copyright ©1996-2007.
The Daily Herald Co.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[palmspringsbum]

2 activists see drug raids as revenge

By Maureen O'Hagan and Diane Brooks
Seattle Times staff reporters
January 19,2007

<table class=posttable align=right width=200><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/sarich_steve_stop.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Steve Sarich, of Everett, executive director of CannaCare, a medical-marijuana-advocacy organization, says the marijuana "nursery" at his home is for CannaCare members who have a doctor's authorization.</td></tr></table>When a drug task force raided the homes of Steve Sarich and John Worthington last week, the two men loudly proclaimed it was retaliation for their support of medical marijuana.

It was a "political assassination," said Sarich, who runs an advocacy organization called CannaCare.

Some might say the two men are misplacing blame, especially considering the size of Sarich's marijuana garden, which at one point filled almost a full floor in his Northeast Everett home. But a close look at court documents suggests that, in some ways, their activism did lead law enforcement straight to their doors. According to court documents, a multiagency drug task force found and confiscated more than 1,500 marijuana plants in Sarich's home and a handful in Worthington's. Neither man has been arrested or charged.

Sarich and Worthington came to the attention of the task force last year, when they filed declarations in support of another man facing federal marijuana-distribution charges, according to court documents relating to last week's raids.

The prosecutor on the case asked Bremerton Police Detective Roy Alloway, who serves on the drug task force, who they were. He soon learned that Worthington, of Renton, had a habit of sending e-mails to law-enforcement and government officials complaining about what he saw as the unfair targeting of medical-marijuana patients.

Based on that, Alloway wrote in court papers, "I decided to investigate these individuals."

The detective obtained utility-bill records showing Sarich was using about five times more electricity than the average area resident, court documents state. Also, a marijuana odor could be detected outside his home, according to court documents.

That was enough for a judge to sign a warrant to search Sarich's home. The search-warrant application for Worthington's home, which was made over the telephone rather than on paper, was not immediately available.

Sarich said his marijuana "nursery" is all for CannaCare members, each of whom has a doctor's authorization to use pot for medical reasons. Under Washington's medical-marijuana law, passed by voters in 1998, a patient is permitted to designate a "caregiver" to grow marijuana for him or her. But a patient may not have more than a 60-day supply.

Washington State Patrol Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez, who heads the drug task force, conceded that what makes a 60-day supply is open to interpretation.

"But 1,550 plants — that's ridiculous," he said.

Sarich said the number of plants shouldn't be the focus; many of them were tiny and hadn't produced a usable crop.

Worthington, on the other hand, had six plants. He has his doctor's authorization to use marijuana to ease chronic pain caused by a degenerative bone disease.

Officers on the task force normally target what they call mid- to upper-level drug distributors. Six pot plants usually don't qualify, Rodriguez said.

"It kind of looks like they made a mistake," said Worthington's lawyer, James Lobsenz.

Worthington, who used to belong to CannaCare but said he parted ways with Sarich last spring, has repeatedly complained to a number of officials about the activities of the task force, especially the actions of Alloway.

Sarich said he and Worthington recently delivered to the state Legislature a report summarizing their yearlong investigation into the practices of drug task forces, which they said routinely violate Washington law.

The ACLU of Washington, which is involved in medical-marijuana issues, is concerned because agents also seized medical records of about 200 patients from Sarich's house.

"We're looking into what can be done to protect them," Washington ACLU spokesman Doug Honig said of the patients.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney's Office is deciding whether the cases should be handled by state or federal authorities.

A federal prosecution would mean that neither man could claim he was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes. Federal law does not recognize the medical use of pot. The pair could, however, make that argument in state court.


Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com

[palmspringsbum]

<span class=postbold>Drug War Chronicle</span> - world’s leading drug policy newsletter

Medical Marijuana: Washington State Group Raided

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #469, 1/19/07

Washington state drug enforcement agents raided the headquarters of CannaCare, an Everett-based medical marijuana advocacy and support group Wednesday. Agents with the federally-funded West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team seized what they said was more than a thousand marijuana plants, as well as computers containing medical records and other personal information on about 200 people authorized to use the herb under state law. No one has yet been arrested or charged with a crime.

It is the second raid in a week at addresses linked to CannaCare. Last week, agents raided the Renton home of John Worthington, an associate of CannaCare head Steve Sarich, a prominent Washington medical marijuana advocate who, according to the Seattle Times, provoked police by "aannouncing that CannaCare will provide pot plants to patients."

In the Renton raid, police seized six marijuana plants, and Worthington screamed foul. "They went after me because I'm an activist, and I've been terrorized out of growing," Worthington told the Post-Intelligencer. "I can't have my kids frisked like they're criminals. That was disgusting. I'm not Al Capone -- I'm a dad."

Sarich, too, remains unrepentant. "Since they don't like medical marijuana, this is an attack on the people that support it," Sarich told the Seattle paper while insisting he is no drug dealer. According to Sarich, only a few ounces of marijuana were found in the raid, and most of the seized plants were unrooted clones and starter plants. The slightly more than $1,000 cash police seized was to pay his utility bill, he claimed.

But the network of patients around CannaCare and local privacy watchdogs are concerned about patient records falling into the hands of police. "Who knows what they're doing with our information?" said Steve Newman, who has multiple sclerosis and has been using marijuana, obtained through CannaCare, for two years. "It makes me concerned -- really, really concerned. But we're pretty helpless. Nobody can say much about it," he told the Post-Intelligencer.

"CannaCare had a lot of records related to patients they were providing cuttings for," said Alison Chin Holcomb, director of the Washington ACLU's Marijuana Education Project. "We are not real comfortable with law enforcement having the ability to disseminate information from people's medical records," she told Drug War Chronicle.

The group may move to restrict police access to those records, Holcomb said. "We're investigating what legal grounds we might have for requesting that a judge issue a protective order, or maybe even an order sealing those records," she said. "We want to minimize patient exposure."

But if CannaCare and Sarich were providing marijuana to more than one patient, there could be a tough legal battle ahead of them, Holcomb said. "Under Washington law, a designated caregiver can provide for only one patient. If it turns out he is providing to large numbers of people, that could be a real problem for him."

[palmspringsbum]

Patients struggle with legalized marijuana rules

Jeff Humphrey / KXLY4 Reporter
Last updated: Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 11:09:05 AM


<img src=/bin/icon_video.gif> Patients struggle with medical marijuana rules


SPOKANE -- Back in 1998 Washington voters passed an initiative giving people who suffer from certain types of diseases the right to use and possess small amounts of marijuana.

But now even nine years later those same patients struggling to make sure if they get the treatments they need they won't wind up here in court.

Pam Murch is a former advertising executive stricken with multiple sclerosis and scoliosis. After trying pain killers and muscle relaxers she found marijuana treats her symptoms the best.

“It relaxes my spasms, I have a lot of major charley horses that come in my legs on a daily basis and that helps relax that a lot,” she said.

On Monday Murch was one of about forty people who visited a traveling clinic that set up shop in a Spokane hotel. These patients must have their medical records and conditions reviewed by a doctor if they want to qualify for their permit, but many family physicians are still reluctant to sign off on the cannibis treatments.

However Dr. Thomas Orvald is willing to meet with prospective medical marijuana patients. The heart surgeon says after forty years in the business, he thinks marijuana's natural properties outperform other pain medications.

“By helping them achieve some relief from pain by using a non-toxic medication I think it's appropriate,” Dr. Orvald said.

However Dr. Orvald will not tell his patients where to get marijuana.

Most try to grow it themselves, however if they’re caught with more than a two-month supply their permit won't protect them from prosecution.

[palmspringsbum]

January 24, 2007
The Seattle Times


A clarification was published January 29, 2007 to this article published January 24, 2007. John Worthington, a medical-marijuana advocate whose Renton home was raided Jan. 12 by a drug task force, says has not worked directly with Steve Sarich or CannaCare since last spring. Worthington, a former CannaCare board member, was described as an "associate" of Sarich in a Wednesday story.


Case highlights medical-pot dilemma

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/sarich-steve_clones.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcell>Steve Sarich trims new marijuana plants delivered by patients after his North Everett home was raided on Jan. 13 by a drug task force that took an estimated 1,500 plants. Sarich is a medical-marijuana advocate whose group, CannaCare, says it has provided medical marijuana for 1,200 patients across the state.
</td></tr></table>By Diane Brooks
Times Snohomish County Bureau

The lush, green replacements began arriving the day after an Olympic Peninsula-based drug task force raided Steve Sarich's North Everett home, carting away an estimated 1,500 marijuana plants.

By Sunday, nine days after the Jan. 12 raid, Sarich's new nursery numbered 50 plants — eight big enough for their own pots, 15 starter-sized plants with roots and 27 freshly cut clones, each stuck into its own egg-sized pod of sod.

"If they didn't arrest me with 1,500, it's not likely they're going to come back and arrest me for 50," said Sarich, whose advocacy group, CannaCare, says it has provided marijuana plants for 1,200 patients all over the state. Some of his new plants, delivered by patients in Longview, Federal Way and Vancouver, Wash., are descendants of the plants he lost.

Now he's waiting to see what comes next.

The U.S. Attorney's Office will decide whether to prosecute Sarich in U.S. District Court, said Jeff Eig, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

In that instance, Sarich could be in serious trouble, because federal courts don't recognize the state's Medical Marijuana Act, approved by voters in 1998. Washington is among 11 states with some form of legalized marijuana use for certain medical patients, including those under treatment for cancer, intractable pain, glaucoma and seizures.

"There's no such thing as medical marijuana," Eig said, flatly discounting such laws.

If federal prosecutors decline to take the case, investigators could offer it to Snohomish County prosecutors, who would look at Sarich's case in light of the state law. But that's tricky, too, because state law doesn't address the question of how medical-marijuana users may legally obtain their pot, or define how many plants each person may possess.

Instead, it states that each person — or that person's caretaker — may possess a 60-day supply, which isn't defined. The law doesn't touch the subject of who may legally provide plants to patients or their caretakers.

"They have to get them from somewhere. They don't just spring out of the air," said Sarich, who has medical authorization to use marijuana to alleviate spinal pain, but says he only produced plants to give to other patients.

Snohomish County Prosecutor Janice Ellis called the conflicting state and federal laws "troubling."

Ellis, who chairs the governor's Council on Substance Abuse, said Sarich came into her office in December to discuss CannaCare's legal goals. She remembers he talked about the starter plants he grows for other patients, but she doesn't recall whether he discussed the size of his nursery.

"The image he is presenting, and I think very effectively, is that he is someone who is trying hard to bring integrity to the debate of medical marijuana," Ellis said. "The law doesn't provide a mechanism through which people can legally obtain plants and grow their own for medical needs."

The Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force also was aware that Sarich was growing medicinal marijuana, said team commander Pat Slack. The team prioritizes a very busy caseload, he said, and Sarich didn't seem to merit scrutiny.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who helped create the state medical-marijuana initiative, said she plans to introduce a bill this session to clarify patients' rights to obtain and grow marijuana and to better define "caretaker." Today, she was scheduled to meet with state prosecutors, police and sheriffs associations to seek support and consensus for her proposal.

Marijuana leaves contain usable amounts of THC, the drug's active ingredient, only when the plants are in their flower or bud stages, Sarich said, adding that none of his seized plants were in bud.

The West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET), serving Kitsap and Mason counties on the Olympic Peninsula, says Sarich drew attention when he and a former associate, John Worthington of Renton, filed declarations in a federal case against another alleged marijuana grower.

A team detective — Roy Alloway, a Kitsap County Sheriff's deputy — persuaded a Kitsap County judge to grant a search warrant for Sarich's home by portraying that unnamed alleged grower, a Vashon Island man, as a major drug distributor who operated across state lines.

Alloway wrote, in the court document, that Worthington had threatened legal action against WestNET for allegedly using state funds to enforce federal marijuana laws.

That combination of factors led Alloway to investigate the pair, he wrote. That investigation turned up Sarich's high power bill, which was consistent with marijuana production. Alloway also said he went to Sarich's home and smelled marijuana from a nearby alley.

Sarich and Worthington, whose home was raided Jan. 12, say Alloway lied to the judge to retaliate against them for their yearlong investigation into WestNET's raids on medical-marijuana patients.

Sarich calls the problem "entrapment by initiative." Drug teams raid the homes of medicinal-marijuana patients, then turn their cases over to federal prosecutors to circumvent the state law, he said.

"The state tells you you're legal, then the state sends in a state-funded drug task force, manned by state employees, who then turn you over to the feds," Sarich said.

Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez, leader of WestNET, said he didn't know about Sarich's advocacy work for medical marijuana, and he laughed at the men's claim that Alloway carried a personal vendetta against them.

We wouldn't be in business if we took retaliatory-type actions," he said.


Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com

[palmspringsbum]

Calif. pot patient whose case went to high court is sentenced

By GENE JOHNSON
The Fresno Bee
01/25/07 14:24:48

A medical marijuana patient from California who lost her case before the state Supreme Court last fall was sentenced Thursday to 60 days home confinement, after her lawyers argued that she was too sick to spend time in jail.

Sharon Tracy, 53, said she was "overjoyed" with the sentence handed down by Skamania County Superior Court Judge E. Thompson Reynolds. She also must perform 30 days of community service and pay $3,000 to help cover the cost of her appeal.

"He could have gone ahead and let me go, but it's the best I could have gotten in a bad situation," Tracy said.

Tracy, of Hayward, Calif., was arrested in 2003 when a detective found her with about 40 grams of marijuana and four pot plants in 2003.

At the time, Tracy had been splitting her time between California and Skamania County, on the Columbia River in southwestern Washington. She suffers from coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and migraines, and has undergone reconstructive surgeries to repair a ruptured colon and a congenital left hip deformity. She turned to marijuana to reduce her usage of addictive painkillers such as Vicodin.

Though she presented a Skamania County sheriff's detective with a valid California medical marijuana card, the judge barred her from presenting a "compassionate use" defense under Washington's medical marijuana initiative, on the theory that the doctor who gave her the card was not licensed to practice medicine in Washington state.

She was convicted of felony possession of marijuana as well as manufacturing marijuana, and she appealed. Last November, the state Supreme Court upheld her convictions in a 6-3 decision.

Prosecutor Peter Banks asked the judge to reimpose her original sentence, 60 days in jail plus 30 days of community service, but later in the hearing said he would not object to having her serve the time at the home of a friend, with electronic monitoring.

"She's a lot sicker than she was two or three years ago," Banks said before the hearing.

A few dozen supporters, some of them medical marijuana patients themselves, attended the hearing, said her lawyers, David Schultz and Douglas Hiatt. During the hearing they passed a hat and collected more than $500 to help pay the costs of the electronic monitoring, Hiatt said.

Hiatt and Schultz maintained that Tracy should have received no jail time or home confinement because she believed she was complying with the state's medical marijuana law. They noted that three of the Supreme Court justices agreed with her.

"That initiative needs to be clearly interpreted the way voters intended it," Tracy said. "I think I was mistreated. I think I was judged unfairly."

[palmspringsbum]

Olympia Moves to Extinguish Disputes Over Medical Marijuana Law

Posted by Dominic Holden on February 15 at 13:59 PM



A third medical marijuana bill—and the most comprehensive this session—to amend Washington’s troubled Medical Use of Marijuana Act was introduced in the state legislature yesterday. Clarifications to the 1998 voter-passed law are long overdue for patients who have tried to comply with the ambiguous initiative but have found themselves facing criminal charges. The bills seek to draw clearer lines between compliance and violation—thereby, supporters hope, reducing arrests of seriously ill patients and their family members.

SB 6032: Introduced yesterday by Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36) in the Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee, this thorough bill would clarify who can provide cannabis (a “designated provider”), what language should appear on authorization forms (less restrictive), and how patients can cultivate their gardens (with help from designated providers or other patients).

HB 1395: This bill, introduced by Representative Sherry Appleton (D-23), would recognize authorizations signed by physicians from other states that also have medical marijuana laws. The bill specifically follows through on the recommendations of the state’s supreme court, who wished for patients to escape the horror that befell the diabetic, congenitally deformed, broken-spined, chronic-migraine-suffering Sharon Tracy who was convicted on the technicality.

HB 2124: Another bill from Appleton, this one would prevent locally funded law enforcement from giving case information (i.e., turning in patients) to law-enforcement agencies that don’t recognize our medical marijuana law (i.e., the feds).

The bills are now up against the clock to get out of committee and pass both houses before the session ends April 22.

[palmspringsbum]

Officials seek public input on medical marijuana

by M. Alexander Otto, Tacoma News-Tribune
August 21st, 2007


The Washington State Department of Health is looking for public input on what constitutes a 60-day supply of medical marijuana.

Officials also want to hear the public’s ideas about how patients can gain access to adequate and safe sources of medical marijuana.

The department is looking for answers to those questions because the state Legislature earlier this year asked officials to make new rules on those two topics in an effort to smooth access for sick people to medical marijuana, which Washington voters legalized in 1998.

"We want to hear from anyone interested in the topic,” said Blake Maresh, who is directing the rules effort for the agency.

The rules, due next year, are ultimately to be based on research, expert advice, public input and the best practices of other states.

The plant helps fight nausea and pain in people sick with multiple sclerosis, cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses.

The public can submit comments to medicalmarijuana@doh.wa.gov.

Public workshops will also be in Seattle, Spokane, Yakima and Vancouver in mid-September.

The Seattle workshop is scheduled for Sept. 10.

Following the workshops, the draft rules will be filed, and formal, public hearings on them will take place.

The state’s medical marijuana Web site has updates on how the rule-making is going, the schedule for the public hearings, and other issues related to the medical use of marijuana at www.doh.wa.gov/medicalmarijuana.

You can also submit comments there, and read those left by others.

[palmspringsbum]

Input sought for new medical marijuana rules

by John Branton, The Columbian
August 20th, 2007


State health officials have been directed by the Legislature to create new rules for the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes, and the public is invited to comment.

Washington's current law, passed as a voter initiative in 1998, says folks with certain medical conditions may use marijuana to relieve pain and other problems, if their physicians approve.

A problem is that the law says patients may have a 60-day supply of marijuana, but it doesn't define how much that would be, according to a bulletin from the Washington State Department of Health.

In this area, local police guidelines say a 60-day supply would be up to three ounces of harvested pot per patient; or nine plants - three small starters, three juveniles and three mature plants.

Those guidelines were developed by the executive board of the Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force, assisted by the Clark County Prosecutor's Office. The rules have been challenged by at least one medical marijuana advocate.

Earlier this year, the Legislature made changes to the law and directed the state health department to write rules, due next July 1, defining a 60-day supply.

The health department also is to submit a report to the Legislature, showing how medical marijuana patients can obtain safe and adequate supplies of the drug.

To define the 60-day supply and create the report, health officials are to consider research, the advice of experts, the best practices of other states and input from the public. Those wishing to comment online can send e-mails to MedicalMarijuana@doh.wa.gov .

A Web site, www.doh.wa.gov/medicalmarijuana , will keep visitors informed about the rules process and related issues. Visitors also can sign up for regular e-mail updates.

In addition, four public workshops are scheduled around the state, including one in Vancouver. It will run from 3 to 7 p.m. Sept. 17 at the Water Resources Education Center, 4600 S.E. Columbia Way, east of Marine Park.

After officials gather public comments, they will file their draft rules. Formal hearings will follow, the bulletin said.


<small>John Branton covers crime and law enforcement. He can be reached at 360-759-8012 or john.branton@columbian.com</small>

[palmspringsbum]

Medical Marijuana Laws Under Scrutiny

<span class=postbigbold>State seeks public input</span>

by Evan McLean, Sequim Gazette
September 5th, 2007


Marijuana growers and law enforcement in Clallam County are watching the state cultivate rules to better define the legal medical use of the drug.

In 1998 Washington voters passed an initiative allowing the use of medical marijuana with a doctor’s note. Washington State Department of Health is creating a report for the Legislature that will identify exactly what constitutes the allowed 60-day supply.

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell>
<span class=postbold>Washington medical marijuana Internet links of interest:</span>
<ul class=postlist><li>The state of medical marijuana in Washington site includes links to court cases, scientific reports and testimonials at www.cannabismd.org. </li>

<li>The Green Cross site contains recent news, I-692 tutorials, authorization form examples and a patient-physician guide at hemp.net/greencross. </li>

<li>hemp.net is a medical marijuana advocacy site </li>

<li>The Drug Enforcement Agency has a site dedicated to exposing myths of medical marijuana at www.usdoj.gov/dea/ongoing/marijuana.html, supporting federal laws that prohibit any marijuana use. </li>
</ul>
To submit comments toward the state’s plan to create rules defining what a prescribed medical marijuana user can have on their person or growing in their homes, e-mail MedicalMarijuana@doh.wa.gov or fax at 360-236-4768 or mail to Department of Health, PO Box 47866, Olympia, Wash. 98504.

<span class=postbold>From the Washington State Medical Association:</span>

According to the Washington state law the benefits of medical marijuana may include treating nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, AIDS wasting syndrome, severe muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis or other spasticity disorders, glaucoma and some types of intractable pain. Some of the risks of medical marijuana may include possible long-term effects of the brain in the areas of memory, coordination and cognition, impairment of the ability to drive or operate heavy machinery, respiratory damage, possible lung cancer and physical or psychological dependence. </td></tr></table>“I think these rules will benefit everyone, from my level as a prosecuting attorney to the law enforcement realm and even down to the growers themselves,” Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said.

Blake Maresh, Department of Health Medical Commission executive director, said the report will be based on expert testimony, public input and the best practices of other states.

“Whether the rule will cover growing plants and what you can have on person will come from the Legislature,” Maresh said. “But as a local example, Oregon established rules allowing 24 ounces of processed medical marijuana as well as six mature plants and 18 seedlings.”

“It’s been our rule that five plants is the maximum in a grow,” Kelly said.

Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team Commander Ron Cameron said Clallam’s five-plant rule has provided solid ground for law enforcement to stand on. However, enforcement can vary.

“Civil forfeiture law allows us to take any plants and equipment for grows over five plants,” Cameron said. “But this is very discretionary.”

Cameron gave two examples. In one, officers may walk into a grow operation with extravagant systems where each plant may produce ounces of the drug.

“Then there’s the situation where our medics respond to a Lifeline alert and find themselves in a sick elderly woman’s home where she has 23 plants that all together may not be able to produce a single ounce,” Cameron said.

The Lifeline alert was a true story. Cameron did not authorize the plants to be taken.

“Some people do an incredible amount of research and really abuse this medical marijuana law,” Cameron said. “We can usually identify if a grow is personal or for distribution and we try to respect those people taking advantage of the law for the right reasons.”

Maresh said there would be unavoidable challenges between state and federal enforcement of medical marijuana use.

“Even though the law does provide for local and state protection if you are approved by a doctor, there is still an underlying federal regulation that prohibits anyone from using marijuana,” Maresh said. “But other states have created rules like what we are trying to create, so we have a platform to make our policy as sound and clear as possible.”

Maresh said his department’s job is to gather information, not make recommendations. Cameron said his department is creating a recommendation to be included in that process.

<span class=postbigbold>Local cases</span>

Kelly commented on two criminal cases of local growers with doctor’s notes. One sent Brian Rickard, who was featured making marijuana- laced food in a 2005 Gazette article, to jail for a month earlier this year with fines in excess of $1,300. He’d been growing approximately 60 plants in his Sequim home with a doctor’s note.

The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office left him with five plants, took his growing equipment and forwarded charges to the court system.

“I’m not a manufacturer, I’m a farmer,” said Rickard in the 2002 story. His initially prescribed treatment regime included a variety of pharmaceuticals from Veterans Affairs, which he said were making him die faster. He said his quality of life improved using marijuana versus being drugged up all of the time.

However, his grow wasn’t reportedly just for him. The warrant to search his home resulted from deputies finding marijuana in the car of a friend of Rickard’s who had been pulled over for a traffic stop.

“Rickard had more plants than what constitutes a 60-day supply, that much was clear,” Kelly said. “He is on one end of the spectrum.”

On the opposite side of the spectrum, James Dropp had his case dismissed in Superior Court in early August. He had a smaller operation, with 12 plants in various stages.

“Law enforcement took seven and left him with five,” Kelly said. “He had the correct documentation and was brought down to our county’s definition of what’s legal.”

Maresh said the health department is required to look at safe and effective means for distributing medical marijuana, as many who are sick are unable to grow for themselves.

Maresh said the meetings would gather information on different means of distribution, be that through a dispensary, government regulated growers or other ideas used in other states.

Department of Health reports are due back to the Legislature by July 1, 2008. The department’s progress will be updated at www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/medical-marijuana/ throughout the entire process.

[palmspringsbum]

Pro-marijuana group wants Yakima investigated

KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities
Updated: Sep 20, 2007 07:46 PM PDT


YAKIMA, Wash - A medical marijuana advocacy group is asking Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna to investigate Yakima County to see if it is following Washington's medical marijuana law.

CannaCare believes Sheriff Ken Irwin and County Prosecutor Ron Zirkle aren't allowing patients in Yakima access to medical marijuana.

Under Washington law, patients are allowed to have a sixty day supply of marijuana if their doctor prescribes it.

CannaCare wants the state to investigate authorities in Yakima because they think Zirkle and Irwin aren't following the law.

But the county prosecutor says the law is the problem.

"The law says a person can have a 60 day supply," said Zirkle, "but it doesn't say what a 60 day supply is."

According to Zirkle, the law passed in 1998 is so vague, there is nothing stopping a patient from claiming that their 50 plants are their sixty day supply.

The state is working on a clarification of the law, but it won't ready for several months.

[palmspringsbum]

Pot advocates criticize two county officials

by Mark Morey, Yakima Herald
September 20th, 2007


SELAH -- Medical marijuana advocates are charging that Yakima County has disregarded the state's law regarding limited use of the drug by approved patients.

But Sheriff Ken Irwin and chief prosecutor Ron Zirkle disagreed, saying that they have tried to appropriately handle the few cases that have come up since voters approved the related initiative in 1998.

CannaCare, a medical marijuana advocacy group active in Washington and Nevada, issued a news release Wednesday stating the group's concerns about the county's approach. The news release also stated that CannaCare would ask the state attorney general's office to investigate.

CannaCare representative Steve Sarich spoke at a meeting Wednesday evening in Selah where the state Department of Health was gathering comments on how the agency should define a 60-day supply of medical marijuana for patients.

The group accuses Zirkle and Irwin of not recognizing the law, based on a letter from a member of the prosecutor's staff.

Zirkle, who attended Wednesday's session but did not speak, described the letter as unclear and said he would look into it. He said he was not aware before Wednesday of the correspondence with a medical marijuana advocate from Western Washington.

Irwin said the law needs to be fixed to define a proper supply.

A recent revision to the state statute directs police to let patients retain their marijuana if they can prove they have proper documentation.

Zirkle and Irwin said medical marijuana cases are relatively rare in Yakima County, although they could not provide an exact count.

Zirkle said he personally believes that the push for medical marijuana is part of an effort to legalize its use altogether.

CannaCare representative Steve Sarich said widespread legalization is not his focus.

"That may be a good issue, but it's not my issue," Sarich said.

Sarich said he thinks that law enforcement officials want the Department of Health rule as another method by which they can pursue prosecution of patients. Sarich said his home in Western Washington was raided, although no charges have been filed.

The appropriate amount of medical marijuana means different things for different patients, speakers told department representatives during the comment period.

The meeting at the Selah Civic Center was the last of four held around the state by the department as officials respond to the Legislature's request to set how much marijuana should be allowed for patients who possess a qualifying recommendation from a doctor under state law. That administrative rule is due by July.

Some speakers suggested that nine plants isn't enough, while another said that a 100-plant standard may reduce conflicting enforcement efforts.

Voters approved the state's medical marijuana law in 1998. It allows approved patients of certain medical conditions -- cancer, AIDS and intractable pain, among others -- to hold a 60-day supply of the drug. But the proper amount has never been defined, leaving providers and police in a quandary.

The federal government, which has long maintained that marijuana offers no medical benefit, still considers the drug illegal, regardless of laws in Washington and other states.

The Department of Health also wants to clarify the best method for supplying the drug to patients.

Speakers at Wednesday's meetings -- some of whom expressed concern about being targeted by police because they spoke out -- said the lack of a secure supply forces them to get marijuana from illegal dealers, especially if they do not have the resources or knowledge to grow their own.

The Department of Health tentatively expects to end its public comment period by December.


* Mark Morey can be reached at 577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.


<span class=postbold>Medical marijuana comments</span>

Comments on a medical marijuana rule proposal may be submitted to the Department of Health via the following methods:
<ul class=postlist>
<li>Sending an e-mail to medicalmarijuana@doh.wa.gov. </li>

<li>Posting a message at www.doh.wa.gov/medicalmarijuana. </li>

<li>Mailing a letter to Box 47866, Olympia, WA 98504-7866, or faxing it to 360-236-4768. </li>
</ul>
More background information is available at the Web site listed above.

[palmspringsbum]

Standard dosage sought for medical marijuana

by Lynn Marshall, Los Angeles Times
September 23rd, 2007


Patients using marijuana for ailments such as chronic back pain and cancer are allowed by Washington state law to possess a two-month supply of the drug. But medical marijuana doesn't come with a standard dose or even a standard method of taking the drug.

The 1998 law has never spelled out how much usable pot, or how many plants, make up a 60-day supply. Now the state Legislature has demanded an answer to the question by July, and the state is holding hearings to ask experts and citizens for their opinions on how to determine a two-month supply.

"There is so much you will have to take into account," says Joanna McKee, founder of Seattle's Green Cross Patient Co-op. "What about people who eat it? How different is the amount they need from people who smoke it?"

McKee was one of many who spoke at a state health department public meeting this month in Seattle. More than 100 people attended, and about 45 people spoke. Another meeting in Spokane drew similar numbers. Most people were clearly medical marijuana advocates.

The issue is crucial for patients who use medical marijuana.

"What has ended up happening is that in each county, law enforcement effectively decides what constitutes a 60-day supply," says attorney Alison Holcomb, Marijuana Education Project director for the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "And in some counties, that amount has been set at zero."

Of the 12 states that protect medical marijuana patients from state prosecution, Washington is the only one without clear guidelines on the amount a patient or designated caregiver is allowed to possess. Those amounts are different in almost every other state. Oregon allows the largest supply - 24 ounces or six mature plants - while several states allow patients to have only one ounce of usable marijuana on hand. In California, state law sets a limit of 8 ounces or six mature plants, but cities and counties are free to establish higher guidelines.

Dr. Gregory T. Carter, a professor of rehabilitative medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine who studies the effects of marijuana in treating patients with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, says that these codified limits might be too low.

"There are so many variables here. Even if you just look at smokers, you have to look not only at the quality of the pot but also at the efficiency of the smoker," he says. "Some people are better smokers than others."

Tom McBride, executive secretary of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, welcomes the change in the law. "It doesn't make sense for a judge or prosecutor to have to determine how much a sick person needs - that's a medical decision, and I've always felt it should be made by a doctor."

[palmspringsbum]

Marijuana patients caught in a cloud of confusion

by Edie Lau and Josh Farley, Kitsap Sun
October 21st, 2007


Steve Sarich had just finished watering hundreds of marijuana cuttings and stepped into the shower in January when he heard a commotion downstairs. He managed to slip on a bathrobe before a cop walked through the door.

It was Roy Alloway, a drug detective from Kitsap County, armed with a search and seizure warrant for Sarich's crop of about 1,500 marijuana plants.

Sarich wasn't surprised. As executive director of CannaCare, a medical marijuana advocacy group in Everett that supplied patients with clippings to grow their own, Sarich thought he might run afoul of the law one day.

Washington, like 11 other states, allows marijuana to be used as medicine. But the state law doesn't say how much marijuana a resident can possess.

Sarich is confident that his operation was legal. Alloway, a member of the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team, or WestNET - tasked with carrying out what many say is an ambiguous law - begs to differ.

Nearly a decade since Washington voters legalized marijuana as medicine, the issue remains clouded in confusion and controversy. Counties interpret the law inconsistently. In medical circles, the subject is awkward to the point of taboo, with few doctors willing to recommend marijuana for patients. And patients live in a clandestine world, fearful to say where they got their medicine, or even that they use it at all.

An overarching problem is that the federal government does not recognize a medical value to Cannabis sativa, the plant from which marijuana is derived. The state law also is fuzzy on logistics. For example, while a patient with a doctor's note may legally possess marijuana, there is no clear way to obtain the drug.

"It's a pretty odd law, from my perspective," said Jim Carlson, director of pharmacy, clinical health and plan services for Group Health, the state's largest medical provider. "It's one of the only laws that I am aware of that states that something is legal, in the face of there being no legal way to do what is legal."


<span class=postbigbold>CLARIFYING THE LAW </span>

Recognizing the conundrum, the state Legislature this year amended the law, tasking the state Department of Health with resolving two basic questions: What is a 60-day supply of medical marijuana? And how can patients safely obtain it?

The initiative's "60-day" language is a failing peculiar to Washington - other states that allow marijuana as medicine specify limits on both numbers of plants and ounces of usable plant material.

Because of the state law's ambiguities, law enforcement agencies in all of the state's 39 counties take situations on a case-by-case basis and likely consult their respective prosecutor's offices for advice.

"Obviously a search warrant served at a house where 200 plants are found would hardly be a medicinal use case," said Al Townsend, chief of the Port Orchard Police Department. "But until the law gets fixed to make it more clear for us on how we will proceed with these cases, we will continue to look at each of them individually."

WestNET's bust of CannaCare, for example, was rooted in its own interpretation of the medical marijuana act. The team follows a study done by Detective Alloway who drew from several studies, including federal ones defining a 60-day supply as a maximum of 27 plants: nine starts, nine growing, and nine budding at any one time.

Alloway had "received an inquiry" from an assistant U.S. attorney in August 2006 about CannaCare members. The drug task force, which often tracks leads well outside Kitsap County, conducted the search and seizure. "Our job is to dismantle mid- to high-level drug trafficking organizations," WestNET Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez said.

Under Alloway's definition, the 1,500 plants at CannaCare was a clear violation. The case, still pending, was referred to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which views as illegal the possession of marijuana in any amount, anywhere.

"From a legal standpoint, it makes no difference under federal law if you have a two-day supply, 60-day supply or 60-year supply," said Jeff Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for Western Washington.

As a former elected prosecutor of Yakima County of 25 years, however, Sullivan said he empathizes with state prosecutors and police wanting a clearer medicinal marijuana law. He called the Washington Department of Health-led effort "a great one that should have been done a long time ago."

The health department's answers are due July 1. Last month, it held four public meetings around the state to gather ideas and comments. Testimony from a gathering in Seattle, which drew about 100 people from both sides of Puget Sound, underscored the difficulty of producing tidy answers.

For example, one idea for a 60-day supply is 99 plants or fewer, a figure driven not by science but practicality - federal law imposes a mandatory five-year prison sentence on those with 100 or more plants.

But counting plants isn't sensible, Sarich said. At the Department of Health's meeting, the CannaCare director, who has yet to be charged in the January bust, held up a potted plant to make his point.

"Take a guess how many pounds of tomatoes that plant can produce," Sarich said. "We don't know when we start a plant what we're going to get off it. A plant is a zero-day supply of medication."

Mason County Prosecutor Gary Burleson believes patients' individual situations vary far too much to apply a one-size-fits-all solution. "Anybody can come up with quantifiable term," Burleson said in an interview. "But come on, is that really going to be meaningful?"

For instance, different marijuana strains produce different amounts of THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the chief psychoactive ingredient in pot. And people respond differently to the drug: Some need more pot than others to feel its effects.

Another wrinkle: Smoking, while the most potent, fast-acting way of delivering the effects of marijuana, is only one way to take it. Patients also inhale its vapors, eat it in food, drip tinctures under their tongues, rub ointments into their skin, even soak in bubble baths made from marijuana. Each application has its own dose.

"How are you going to plug those kinds of things into health standards?" Burleson asked.


<span class=postbigbold>CLUBS ON THE LEGAL FRINGES </span>

The question of access is equally tricky. State law allows each patient to grow his or her own marijuana plants or designate a caregiver to grow on his or her behalf. Medical marijuana advocates say the provision presumes that all patients have the know-how and energy to grow their own.

Carolyn Welch of Seattle was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer this summer. She said she was fortunate to have a friend in the medical marijuana movement who helped her obtain the tinctures, rubs and foods she needed to cope with the effects of surgery and chemotherapy.

"I couldn't grow my own," Welch told state health representatives. "I had two days from the time I got out of the hospital until I started chemotherapy. ... I don't know how much green stuff I need to make a tincture or a massage oil. ... I was a mess."

Even for people who feel well enough to garden, growing pot is not a simple exercise, said Monte Levine, a 61-year-old Bremerton resident experienced in cultivating marijuana to combat fatigue caused by Hepatitis C.

"It's very complicated," Levine said. "Growing plants indoors requires special light bulbs. ... The electricity's expensive. There are different plant strains for different ailments. You have to know how to fertilize them. How to get a good strain. These are all issues."

So, again, are vagaries in the law. Levine was the target of busts in 2001 and 2002. First local authorities, then federal agents, raided his two-bedroom home in Bremerton, where he grew marijuana in an attic over the garage. Charges in both cases were dropped, but the threat of prosecution continues to loom.

A letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Whalley to Levine's lawyer in 2002 warned: "... if we receive a new marijuana case referral concerning your client ... from state or local authorities, we will accept the case for federal prosecution no matter what quantity of marijuana is involved."

Many medical marijuana advocates say "group grow" is the way to go forming clubs or cooperatives where patients share their marijuana and knowledge. But as the CannaCare raid illustrates, keeping marijuana in substantial quantities, whether as plant cuttings or dried, ready-to-ingest medicine, is legally risky.

Of a half-dozen or so cannabis clubs in Washington, most are in Seattle because of that city's philosophy of tolerance, as expressed by Initiative 75, a measure approved by voters in 2003 that makes arresting and prosecuting individuals with less than 40 grams of marijuana the "lowest law enforcement priority."

One club in Seattle is Emerald Cross, managed by Sue Watson of Port Orchard. Watson said she wanted to locate the club in Kitsap County, but the county prosecutor's office told her the operation violated the one patient-one caregiver rule and therefore would not be welcome.

"In a co-op arrangement, where more than one patient is supplied, or a patient shares his or her 60-day supply, they are in violation of the statute," Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge confirmed in an interview.

Emerald Cross occupies the second floor of a nondescript office building in an industrial zone in the shadow of Interstate 5. About 900 people belong to the club, Watson said, all patients with doctor's notes. Staffers are patients who volunteer their time in return for medicine. The other members pay for their medicine by donation, Watson said, because selling medical marijuana is illegal.

The club has a conference room, a playroom for patients' children, a dispensary and a lounge where members may use their marijuana, relax and visit with others. A cabinet near the dispensary is filled with dozens of colorful glass pipes that tinkle like wind chimes when someone opens the drawer.

Through the open door of her office, Watson watches people come in and out of the lobby. "Usually when they walk out, they're smiling," she said, smiling herself.

Watson's experience with medical marijuana began about 20 years ago after two car accidents injured her back and uncovered a spinal birth defect that makes her prone to vicious headaches.

"I couldn't do anything except cover my eyes, cry and throw up, and have someone take me to the hospital to take something to knock me out," said Watson, 56.

At one point, Watson said, she was taking three Vicodin a day, which caused such severe constipation that not even a tub of prunes could help.

Now she takes no prescription painkillers; she uses just marijuana, smoking an average of a fourth of an ounce a day. She also takes pleasure in inventing new forms of the medicine, including ointments to rub on the skin and, most recently, bubble bath.

Patients come from all over the state to Emerald Cross. Stevan Hall drives from Silverdale to Seattle once a month to pick up medicine for himself and his wife. Hall, 52, was a plumber before he was disabled by an arthritic back. His wife also has a bad back and glaucoma.

"It helps us," he said after fetching a small brown bag from the dispensary. "In the days of our youth, it was to get high, but it's gotten a lot further than that."

Like Hall, many marijuana patients freely admit to having smoked recreationally before using pot as medicine. Although that is not true of every patient one advocate estimated that one-third start out as "naive" users - the fact that some have smoked pot for fun diminishes the credibility of pot as medicine.

Roger Roffman, a University of Washington professor of social work with expertise in addictive disorders, said the medical marijuana movement is hampered by its ties to the movement to legalize marijuana for all uses.

"While there's enormous legitimacy to this issue - many, many patients, I think, really benefit from the use of marijuana - on the other side, there is enormous potential for this issue to be co-opted as a way of getting ultimate legalization of marijuana for recreational use," Roffman said. "The fact that they're not being done separately, I think, has been part of the controversy."

The lure of marijuana for illicit uses also endangers patients. One Kitsap County patient said that after word got out in her small town that she used marijuana to control chronic pain, she was approached by strangers who wanted her to get them drugs.

Levine, the Bremerton patient, said patients who grow their own marijuana are particularly vulnerable. "The first three rules of growing are: Don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone," he said. "You open yourself up to thievery."


<span class=postbigbold>DOCTORS FEARFUL, TOO </span>

Dr. Robert Killian, a physician in Seattle who wrote Washington's medical marijuana initiative, is proud of the law but disappointed in two ways over how it's played out.

In an exchange by e-mail, Killian said he had hoped that the states' push to make marijuana available as medicine would influence the federal government to do the same, setting consistent standards nationwide and giving patients reliable access to the medication. That hasn't happened.

Fellow doctors have let him down as well. "I am disappointed in my colleagues within medicine that have not educated themselves and who avoid this issue," Killian said. "I am very disappointed that my medical colleagues who refuse to protect their patients by not signing the necessary forms are putting their fears above protecting their patients from prosecution."

Third-year UW medical student Sunil Aggarwal, who hopes to write his doctoral thesis on medical marijuana, said he's heard repeatedly from physicians that they'd rather not get involved. "They just don't know what the repercussions are," he said.

In Poulsbo, Narinder Duggal is a rare physician willing to write recommendations for medical marijuana and discuss it publicly. An internist and pharmacologist, Duggal was trained in Canada, where marijuana is legal as medicine. Duggal said he treats marijuana like any other potentially addictive pain drug. He asks patients to sign agreements that they will not abuse the drug and not visit multiple doctors - a common ploy to score extra medication. He runs urine tests to screen patients' drug levels and requires frequent visits for close monitoring.

"I've never in my life been in fear (of prosecution) because I never sell a drug," Duggal said. "I think you feel vulnerable if you're not educated enough."

Duggal said he would like to see a discussion among doctors, lawyers and law enforcement on the topic "so they can all be on the same page. There should be a collaboration," he said. "I wouldn't center the stage on marijuana, I'd center the stage on pain control. That would be a great forum to have."

It's not a forum the Washington State Medical Association has ever considered, said spokeswoman Jennifer Hanscom. "There hasn't been a lot of interest," she said. "We just don't get calls from physicians struggling with the issue."

The few physicians who do inquire are told that "they are at their own risk if they recommend medical marijuana," Hanscom said. "We give them all the information that the state allows (it), but they are forewarned about the federal law, as well."

Because of the federal prohibition, anything the state does to address shortcomings in its law will fall short, Killian said. "The only improvements will come when federal laws are changed to allow for access and distribution of this drug," he said, adding that the state changes "are trivial, but necessary because law enforcement in general has never been a supporter of this law."

Despite the flaws in the system, medical marijuana advocates are not discouraged. "It's slowly getting more and more open and legal, and patients don't have to be afraid," said JoAnna McKee, who runs Green Cross, a medical marijuana information clearinghouse in Seattle.

McKee has been at the leading edge of Washington's medicinal cannabis movement since before it was legal. She used to run an impromptu cannabis club out of a trailer on Bainbridge Island, supplying about 70 patients until police raided the place in 1995. She continued the work in Seattle for a while. Today, she said, she supplies only information, not marijuana, from her home in the city.

From McKee's perspective, things are much improved. "When we first started, if I was talking about medical marijuana, I had to be careful I wasn't overheard because somebody might get the wrong idea and call police," she said. "I don't think the law is as good as it could be right now, but it's better than it was 10 years ago."

[palmspringsbum]

Judge Dismisses Medicinal Marijuana Lawsuit

The Kitsap Sun
By Josh Farley
Thursday, February 7, 2008

PORT ORCHARD

A county judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a woman who was fired for failing a drug test, even though she claimed she was using medicinal marijuana legally under state law.

The woman had sued Colorado-based TeleTech, which has a call center of almost 700 employees in East Bremerton off Highway 303. She worked there briefly, but after a drug test in October 2006, she was fired, although she told her employers that she was recommended to use pot by a physician.

Superior Court Judge Sally F. Olsen offered no opinion as to the dismissal, only to say that there was "no genuine issue as to any material fact," in the case, which was argued before her in Kitsap County Superior Court Dec. 14.

"We're very pleased with the court's decision," said attorney Jim Shore, of the Stoel Rives law firm that represented TeleTech.

Shore had argued before Olsen that the Medical Marijuana Act, passed by Washington voters in 1998, was not intended to create employment protections to people using marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The woman's attorneys vowed to appeal the case.

The woman, dubbed "Jane Roe" in court documents by her lawyers because marijuana is illegal in any quantity federally, had sought $75,000 in damages. But the law firm representing her wants to create a legal precedent for employees that have recommendations from doctors to use marijuana.

They plan to submit the case to the Washington State Supreme Court for possible direct review, said attorney Michael Subit of Frank, Freed, Subit and Thomas of Seattle. Failing that, it could go to the one of the state's court of appeals divisions for a hearing, he said.

"We believe the voters and the Legislature intended employers to have the duty to accommodate their employees' off-site use of medicinal marijuana," he said. "We understood when we took (the case) this would be a long battle."

A recently decided California Supreme Court case has similarities to the TeleTech lawsuit. By a 5-2 vote, that court ruled in January that employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana even if it was legally recommended by a doctor.

[palmspringsbum]

February 13, 2008
News


The Bong Show

<span class=postbigbold>Pot Legalization Goes Prime Time</span>

by Dominic Holden


<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/the_bong_show.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcell><span class=postbold>STONER TV ACLU funds pro-pot infomercial.</span></td></tr></table>In the last decade, when pot-law reform advocates have faced off with the status quo on equal footing, pot reform has won. Initiative backers in a dozen states, for instance, have spent big bucks passing medical-marijuana measures despite fierce opposition from federal officials. Nevertheless, the adult recreational use of pot (as opposed to medical use) doesn't have majority support to pass in any state. Before voters will ever approve that sort of proposal, pot advocates must first change attitudes toward the drug by going toe to toe with the White House's multimillion-dollar antidrug media campaign.

The national ACLU has decided to fund a pilot effort. Beginning on Valentine's Day, television viewers in the Seattle media market will begin seeing a slick, 30-minute pot-reform infomercial.

Hosted by television travel guru Rick Steves, <i>Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation</i> will initially be available on Comcast On Demand cable, says Alison Holcomb, director of the ACLU of Washington's Marijuana Education Project, which produced the show. Holcomb says the ACLU plans to spend at least $20,000 per week airing the program around the state. Three local network affiliates (KOMO, KING, and KIRO) have already received and approved copies of the script, she says. However, none of the station's advertising managers could be reached for comment. "We're working with the stations to figure out what times are available," Holcomb says. By the end of 2008, she expects the program to begin airing in more conservative regions, including Pierce County, Clark County, and greater Spokane.

"It's good to be in a corner of the country where we can test-market for this," said Steves at an advanced screening. The national ACLU, which opposes punitive marijuana laws they believe chip away at civil liberties, chose Washington because polls suggest reforming marijuana laws is most feasible here. (Disclosure: I used to work for the ACLU of Washington.)

The program makes its case against pot prohibition by chronicling the racial hysteria behind the drug's criminalization in the 1930s and examining the impact of modern-day pot laws, under which about 800,000 people are arrested in the U.S. each year.

The format—an infomercial with the requisite gregarious host and an audience that robotically claps on cue—is clearly geared to strike a chord with its target demographic: moms, a group traditionally wary of marijuana but proven to buy products sold on TV.

But, to fit within cable and station programming guidelines, the show cannot advocate for any specific legal reforms. It must settle for encouraging viewers to start a discussion on the issue and prompting them to visit Marijuana Conversation.org for more information.

The absence of overt advocacy actually makes the program compelling—it encourages the viewer to hang on and find out what he or she is supposed to do. Although, the potential for backlash does exist. When the program wraps up without defining its goals, moms may wonder what exactly the ACLU wants. Does the civil-liberties organization want to allow adults to smoke pot in the privacy of their bedrooms, or is this part of a nebulous liberalization agenda that would make drugs more available?

Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen, the state's leading critic of drug-reform efforts, worries that the infomercial turns pot smokers into politically sympathetic characters. "When you start running ads and say, 'Golly, gee whiz, look at all the things happening to people who get [unfairly] arrested,' you start putting out a story saying there is no problem with marijuana," says Owen. These messages lower the perception of pot's harm, he adds, thus increasing the rate of marijuana use, especially by kids.

"The show doesn't encourage anyone to use marijuana," Holcomb responds. "This show acknowledges risks associated with heavy marijuana use, and no one is saying that marijuana use is a good thing."

"The question we are positing is this: Is criminalizing marijuana use actually increasing public safety and decreasing health risks," Holcomb says, "or is it hurting us on both counts?"

[palmspringsbum]

Let's talk about marijuana

The Seattle Times
By Kathleen Taylor
Special to The Times
March 18, 2008

A College student loses his financial aid because of a youthful indiscretion. A woman coping with the ravages of ovarian cancer lives in fear of being arrested for using what best eases her suffering. Across town, a front door bursts open and police rush in to handcuff a man relaxing in his living room.

These events have one thing in common: marijuana. Whether it is being kicked out of college for a youthful mistake, being denied relief from pain as a cancer patient, or getting arrested for personal use in one's home, marijuana laws have far-reaching consequences.

And these consequences are often totally disproportionate to whatever societal risk or danger marijuana use may pose.

So, can we talk?

I think we should. As a nation, we spend at least $7.5 billion annually enforcing our marijuana laws. In 2006, the latest year for which we have numbers, a record 830,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana — 89 percent of them simply for possessing it.

Our criminal-justice system wastes time and resources with these low-level marijuana-possession cases while half our violent crimes go unsolved. And those facing the judge are disproportionately African American and Latino.

A recent report to the Seattle City Council on Initiative 75 — which made the adult personal use of marijuana the city's lowest law-enforcement priority — showed people of color are still far more likely to be arrested than whites, despite similar rates of marijuana use.

Unjust and uneven enforcement is just one of the ramifications of treating marijuana use as a criminal matter. Noted physician and pharmacologist John Morgan has said, "The most dangerous thing about marijuana is to be arrested for its possession or use."

Indeed, the consequences of an arrest for even a small amount of marijuana can haunt someone for the rest of his or her life. We have met and heard from people who lost or were denied jobs, had their homes raided and their property seized, lost child-visitation rights, and had their medical marijuana confiscated.

Ironically, we've been down this path before. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking. Instead, it created gang warfare between bootleggers over the profits to be made. Sound familiar?

We realized Prohibition was creating a lot of new problems and solving few, if any, of the old ones. States now control alcohol sales and consumption. And our tax dollars are more effectively directed at regulation, public education and treatment for those whose use becomes problematic.

As parents, we want to shield our children from harm and reserve certain choices for when they are old enough to understand the risks and repercussions. Certainly, this is as true of marijuana as it is of alcohol and tobacco. But just as certainly, and as most teenagers will tell you, it is easier for them to buy marijuana than beer or cigarettes. Our marijuana laws don't work. I know it. You know it. Scores of our neighbors know it.

But no one is talking. Most of us have our own ideas about what should be done, but this has to be a decision that we make as a community. Too much is riding on this issue not to have an honest, candid discussion. Please join us in the conversation.

Kathleen Taylor is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.

[palmspringsbum]

Salem-News.com (Mar-22-2009 03:02)

Washington State Marijuana Trial on National Stage

Bonnie King Salem-News.com

<span class="postbold">Thousands are anxiously watching the case against a retired stone mason as they move into closing arguments.</span>


(PORT ORCHARD, Wash.) - Thirty or so miles outside Tacoma, Washington, in Kitsap County there has been a storm brewing. It's been coming for almost two years, and for the last two weeks, the force of the impact has been hitting the courtroom, but hard.

Kitsap County may not be a place that every one is acquainted with, and after you read this story, it may indeed be one of the last places you ever want to visit.

Though we generally accept that people are hard working, honest and congenial throughout the Pacific NorthWest, it so happens that the very core of the Kitsap County government has displayed none of those considerable attributes.

The majority of Washingtonians voted together in 1998 for the health and safety of its ill residents. Supporting the medical use of marijuana was not a hard choice for most, and the state has adjusted very well overall to bringing these sick patients into the fold.

Contrary to these ideals seems to be one particular man: Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge (pronounced howgy). His opinion of the thousands of legal medicinal use patients seems to be nothing less than disapproval.

The story goes like this:

In May of 2007, Pamela and Bruce Olson's Olalla, Washington home was raided by the WestNET (West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team) drug task force, and they were both arrested. Upon entry to their home, the police poisoned the family’s black Labrador dogs, costing $2,000 in vet bills to save them.

The Olson's are both registered medical marijuana patients, approved by the State of Washington to grow and use the herb medicinally. They say they were obeying the law, but nevertheless, they each faced the same "distribution" charge of illegal possession of marijuana with the intent to sell for growing 48 plants.

Ironically, Bruce and Pam Olsen had no usable cannabis at the time of their arrest. The couple was attempting their first crop, when an informant led the WestNET Drug Task Force to search them. They had a total of 12 flowering plants that were three feet tall, and 18 little cuttings that were less than eight inches tall, which is less than recommended by THCF Medical Clinic.

Even so, prosecutors claim that the Olson's exceeded the state's 60-day supply rule allowed under the 1998 initiative, and that they were selling marijuana, not just using it medicinally. The Olson's maintain that they were not selling on the black market, and their medicine was grown for personal use. Still, the prosecution pressed on helping make this case the "poster child" for medicinal marijuana advocates across the United States.

To finance their legal defense, the Olson's had to sell their home of 20 years. They now live in a RV parked on a friend's property.

In April 2008, a Superior Court judge ruled that 51-year old Pamela Olson could not use the medical marijuana law as a defense, saying that her doctor should have told her what her 60-day supply is instead of her making the determination herself. Pamela Olson was sentenced April 29th, 2008 to 60 days of house arrest, and is now serving probation, having pleaded out to avoid jail time. Her husband's trial was set for March 2009.

Perhaps not oddly enough, the judge agreed that as part of her sentence, Pamela Olson is not allowed to use medical marijuana to ease her pain, apparently because Department of Correction rules don’t "recognize" medical marijuana.

Unfortunately, Washington's original medical marijuana law that was passed by voters in 1998 contained only an affirmative defense for authorized patients, in that law enforcement officials were still able to arrest patients, who then faced the burden of proving their innocence in court.

Washington medicinal marijuana advocates say that more progressive prosecutors like King County’s Dan Satterberg recognized that hauling patients into court was a waste of time and taxpayer money, and didn’t do it. But that is not the case with Russ Hauge, who has turned into a major focus of the anger in this case.

When questioned on wasting tax payer money on the Olson case, Hauge said, "We had no special expenditures for this case. We didn’t fly in any expert witnesses, and the prosecutor isn’t getting paid overtime." Two weeks of court, and a witness flown from Oklahoma. One would think that could total up sizeably.

"A lot of us who are trying to call more media attention to the Olson trial certainly want more changes to our current drug laws. No argument there," says an Olson supporter. "The problem with what Russ Hauge is doing is that he’s openly trying to undermine the current medical marijuana law in the state of Washington."

The usual "tactic", as Hauge's adversaries say, has been for his office to arrest patients, then threaten them with long prison terms until accept a plea deal. This is what happened to Pamela Olson.

54-year old Bruce Olson, however, has not plead out. For the past two weeks, he has been on trial. Over twenty people have been in court every day, observing the trial and showing their support for Olson.

"Weeks ago Dr. Orvald and I went to be interviewed by the prosecuting attorney in Port Orchard. We were both questioned separately for two hours each," Paul Stanford told Salem-News.com before the trial.

"Based upon that, we anticipated that this trial would be dismissed and the Olsons charges dropped. We are very surprised that the Kitsap County prosecutor is continuing to trial, though they know from our interviews that the Olsons had no usable marijuana."

One supporter, an Oregon medical marijuana patient, drove 200 miles to attend the trial. After one day outside the courtroom, he appealed to President Obama and others for attention to this case, attempting "to alert you to the deviant tactics being played by Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Alexis Foster, as well as ask for your help in this matter."

He says that he arrived a few minutes late to the hearing on Tuesday March 10th, so he waited outside the courtroom for a break, so as not to interrupt the proceedings. He had with him a notepad, with a small stop sign graphic on the notepad, which read “Stop Arresting Medical Marijuana Patients” in red.

He believed he was following the rules of the court, even the guards at the entrance of the courthouse had seen the notepad and let him in without saying a word. He was also wearing a 2-inch NORML button, which read “Medical Marijuana is NORML in Oregon”.

He says that when the jurors came out for their break, he was sitting with a few other supporters. He did not look at, nor speak to, or in any other way make contact with any of the jurors, so he was surprised to learn a few minutes later that the entire jury had been thrown out by Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leila Mills' and that the jury selection process was starting over because "a medical marijuana activist was outside the courtroom with a sign promoting the cause."

"There are multiple witnesses to the situation, attesting that I was behaving only in a professional and courteous manner," he said. "When the Prosecutor walked by, she gave me no acknowledgment; she acted as if I didn’t exist, and I wasn’t even sure she saw me."

Foster objected on grounds that the presence of the "protester" might taint the jurors. It was a slow start.

<span class="postbold">ON WITH THE SHOW</span>

Once the trial began, first-time Prosecutor Alexis Foster grilled witnesses, insisting on details and in many instances asking yes-or-no questions that the witnesses could not answer.

The expert witness Paul Stanford, Executive Director of THCF (The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation), was debated. The court ultimately ruled that Stanford could testify as an expert about marijuana cultivation, though not about marijuana as it relates to medical ailments, as he is not a doctor, or about the chemistry of marijuana, as he is no scientist. The THCF clinic is the source of the information the Olson's relied upon to determine how they could comply with the law, so his testimony was clearly necessary.

The authorizing doctor was also discussed at length.

Foster attempted to disqualify Dr. Thomas Orvald as an expert witness, a motion Superior Court Judge Leila Mills denied. When Foster pressed the doctor about his personal income, defense attorney Thomas Balerud objected, “Dr. Orvald is not being prosecuted for tax fraud, so I think we should move on to something more substantial.”

Dr. Thomas Orvald issued Olson’s medicinal marijuana recommendation. He testified that Bruce Olson suffered from four ailments, each of which qualified him for treatment via medicinal marijuana including Hepatitis C, spinal fractures, ruptured discs, a defective hip and Barrett's disease.

Foster portrayed Dr. Orvald as a difficult and busy witness. She traveled to his Bellevue clinic Friday, March 6th, with two sheriff's detectives in tow, to do a pre-trial interview. That never happened, however, as Dr. Orvald was late, then offered to do the interview at a hotel conference room near the clinic. The prosecutor told the court that she was concerned for her safety, "given the feelings of the medical marijuana community about this case."

Orvald told the court that he sees patients about once a year, and he will approve or decline them based on their condition(s). Washington is like Oregon, in that a patient must be re-approved every year for their medical marijuana permit from the State. A doctor's signature on the application is mandatory in submitting a request.

After three hours of expert testimony from Paul Stanford and a full seven hours on the stand by Dr. Orvald, as well as others, one must wonder what Kitsap County hopes to gain. Or, if they realize what they have become.

As the "allowable limit" of marijuana was the basis of this case, it would be remiss not to note that since Pamela's trial, the law about acceptable quantities of medical marijuana has been more strictly defined in Washington.

Now, card-carrying medical marijuana patients can defend their use in open court if they have no more than 15 plants and up to 24 ounces of marijuana if they believe their supply is within a “60-day supply.” But that law didn’t exist when the Olson cases were brought forth by the enforcement team — only a vague definition dubbed the “60 day supply.”

The only witness the prosecution could come up with is a police informant, Mr. Kenny, allegedly a longtime drug addict that they flew to Washington from Oklahoma for the trial. He claims to have seen Bruce Olson sell marijuana to another person while they were driving home from work. The defense attorney called witnesses who refuted that claim. Their employer said they weren't employed until three months after WestNET raided the Olsons. Mr. Kenny, who claims to have damaged his brain with drugs and alcohol, apparently has a bad memory.

<span class="postbold">COMPASSION STARTS HERE</span>

As is well known, access to medical marijuana is rarely, if ever, a matter of life and death to patients. However, it’s a serious quality of life issue for pain management, stimulating hunger during chemotherapy, etc., and depriving them of relief is equal to committing abuse toward that patient. Officials of any capacity should find no protection where their vow to public service has been broken. No one should be over to overrule a doctor's recommendation for a patient to use the best, legal, safe medication for their ailment. Probation or not. Eventually this obvious error will in itself, be overruled.

The Post Orchard Independent says that Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge characterizes medical marijuana advocates as “a well-organized lobby whose purpose is to see the laws changed.” Not, "supporters of the ill and sick". That may not important to Hauge, but as medical marijuana supporters have been congregating in Port Orchard to oversee this trial, they’re discovering what they call "more victims of Russ Hauge’s crusade", including a quadriplegic by the name of Glenn Musgrove, who was recently wheeled into court on a gurney. Musgrove has a hearing scheduled for next Friday, March 27th.

As sick as these patients are, the danger of using marijuana has stayed exactly the same; the real "risk" is that of being arrested. That, and being at the mercy of an unruly justice system.

In the U.S. alone, there are currently over 800,000 people incarcerated for marijuana, 90% of which are for simple possession. With 13 states standing firm as medical marijuana states and several more waiting on the sidelines, a major change in the system is immenent.

80 million Americans are known to have used marijuana, and as hundreds of thousands using it legally across our nation, the old "reefer madness" stigma is all but gone. Still, those that oppose education, cling to "old wives tales" and refuse to accept proven medical expertise will continue to find frustration as those old views are washed aside in the changing tide that is today's marijuana advocacy movement.

Closing arguments for Kitsap v. Bruce Olson are expected on Monday or Tuesday.

[palmspringsbum]

Salem-News.com (Mar-24-2009 15:07)

Jury Acquits Washington Man in Medical Marijuana Case

Bonnie King Salem-News.com

<span class=postbigbold>After nearly two years of relentless accusations and threat of jail time, it is now all a matter of history.</span>


(PORT ORCHARD, Wash.) - A Washington man who being prosecuted for marijuana in spite of the fact that he is a legal, registered medical marijuana patient in Washington, has been acquitted by a jury. His wife was also arrested in the May 2007 raid at their home, and she previously pleaded guilty over pressure from the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office in Port Orchard.

54-year old Bruce Olson had faced one count of "manufacturing" (growing) marijuana and one count of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. The trial lasted a full two weeks.

The prosecution's star witnessed according to trial attendees, was a drug addict who had to be brought out from Oklahoma.

Olson's case dates back to May 2007. That is when detectives with the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team made their arrest, contending that Olson had more marijuana than state law allowed. Unfortunately for the Olson's and others in Washington, the law was vague concerning the number of plants allowable, and so certain prosecutors took advantage of that by arresting legal patients.

The Kitsap Sun's Josh Farley reported that the jury spent between two and three hours deliberating both Monday and Tuesday, before returning the verdict.

Bruce Olson can breathe a sigh of relief, but the actions and motives of the prosecutor's office here have raked Mr. Olson through the mud. As a result of what now appears to have been a bogus arrest, he had to sell his home of over 20 years to fund his defense, and he and his wife, Pamela, now live in an RV.

To make matters even worse, the state of Washington decided that she can not use medical marijuana for her pain while she's on probation.

Regardless of all they've been through, the Olson's feel they've helped others.

"But it's worth it for the cause: Quit arresting medical marijuana patients," he said after the verdict.

This verdict is celebrated around the country, as medical marijuana patients (legal in 13 states) feel validation through the judicial system they entrust with their very lives.

[palmspringsbum]

<small>The Spokesman Review | September 2, 2009 in City</small>

Pot law to get court test

<span class="postbigbold">Prosecutor, defense at odds over intent of medical marijuana rule</span>

Meghann M. Cuniff / meghannc@spokesman.com, (509) 459-5534


A legal showdown over Washington’s medical marijuana law is taking shape in Spokane.

At issue is a provision in the voter-approved law that allows caretakers to supply up to 1.5 pounds of marijuana at a time to those with state-issued medical marijuana cards.

Some medical marijuana advocates believe that allows them to lawfully supply one patient at a time. Spokane County prosecutors say the provision limits each caretaker to just one patient – period.

The case of a medical marijuana advocate charged with seven drug-related felonies illustrates a debate about a law prosecutors and pot advocates say is confusing.

Police raided Darren J. McCrea’s home last year after a months-long investigation triggered by a tip that McCrea, the founder of the medical marijuana support group SpoCannabis, was “selling marijuana to anyone with a medical permit,” according to a probable cause affidavit.

On Monday, nearly a year and a half after detectives found 5 pounds of marijuana and $32,000 in a safe in his north Spokane home, McCrea, 41, pleaded not guilty in Spokane County Superior Court to seven charges: five counts of delivery of a controlled substance and single counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and manufacture of a controlled substance.

The five people McCrea is accused of selling marijuana to have Washington medical marijuana cards, as does he. At issue is how the law defines caretakers permitted to provide marijuana to patients.

“It’s created a great deal of confusion and more questions than answers,” said Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor John Grasso.

Grasso said the law allows caretakers to provide marijuana to one person only. McCrea’s lawyer, David Miller, noted in court that the statute states a caretaker can provide to one person “at a time.”

Owners of medical marijuana dispensaries use that interpretation to justify their businesses; Grasso has said he thinks businesses such as Change, on Northwest Boulevard, are illegal. The state Department of Health Web site says the dispensaries are illegal, too, saying the law allows a supplier to supply just one person.

Change co-owner Scott Shupe is facing felony drug charges in Oregon after police found 4 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle during a traffic stop two weeks ago. Shupe considers himself a caretaker for the more than 1,000 people who have bought marijuana at Change, which should allow him to have a pound and a half of marijuana per customer, he says. Even so, Oregon doesn’t recognize Washington medical marijuana licenses.

McCrea bristles when compared to for-profit businesses such as Change. SpoCannabis is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping medical marijuana patients safely obtain their medicine, he said.

But prosecutors don’t go after all medical marijuana patients, Grasso said. He’s seen many cases involving one person growing or supplying marijuana to one medical patient.

“We’re not filing against those people,” Grasso said. “Our interpretation is if you are selling marijuana to more than one patient you are not in compliance.”

Friends and SpoCannabis volunteers attended McCrea’s arraignment Monday to show support for a man they described as a hero.

“Darren provides support and education for people like me,” said Steven Delgado, a cancer patient. “I almost feel like I’m on trial.”