Pubdate: Sun, 17 Feb 2008
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2008 The Billings Gazette
Contact:  http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: Nick Gevock, Montana Standard
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MEDICAL-MARIJUANA GROUP ASSAILS DRUG BUST

DILLON - The large-scale marijuana bust that law officers here touted 
as a major success this month was instead the persecution of a 
terminally ill man who needed the drug to help ease his suffering, a 
pro-medical-marijuana group said Friday.

Patients and Families United, based in Helena, blasted the bust and 
said it would not stand up in court thanks to Montana's Medical 
Marijuana Law, which was passed three years ago. The group criticized 
law officers for making a terminally ill man's last days miserable 
because of the worry that he would end up in prison.

"It amounts to persecution of somebody who's already so overburdened 
with a medical condition that no one should have," said Tom Daubert, 
founder and director of PFU. "That's the purpose of our law, to have 
some relief for somebody who wants to be left alone."

Daubert said his group will help with the legal defense for the man, 
whose name has not been released by officials.

Law officers from Beaverhead County and the Southwest Montana Drug 
Task Force last week were trumpeting the seizure of 96 marijuana 
plants from a mobile home north of Dillon. They said the 
sophisticated growing operation was meant to keep a steady supply of 
marijuana coming, with plants at all stages of development.

They said the marijuana's street value could be up to $153,000.

Blair Martenson, regional director for the task force, refused to 
comment specifically on PFU's contention, saying only that officials 
were pushing ahead with prosecution.

"What we have to say will come out in court," he said.

But Daubert said the man targeted in the investigation, who along 
with a woman have yet to be arrested and charged, is suffering from a 
horrific disease. He would not specify what it was to protect the man 
but said it is a rare degenerative disease that is always fatal.

Daubert said if the man is taken into custody, Beaverhead County 
taxpayers will be on the hook for medical care that costs a 
staggering $136,000 a month to keep him alive.

"Beaverhead County can have some fun with this: pay to keep a guy 
alive for a trial that probably won't happen quickly," he said.

And Daubert lambasted law officers for conducting a three-month 
investigation without knowledge of Montana's medical marijuana law. 
He said assertions that the operation was too large to be for one 
patient's use are bogus, because each individual patient in need of 
medical marijuana requires different quantities.

For some patients, ingesting the marijuana rather than smoking it is 
the most effective way to ease pain, maintain appetite or gain the 
other benefits people garner from pot.

"It is not possible on the basis of the number of plants involved to 
categorically claim that the growing was for anything other than 
personal use," he said.

Daubert promised a "vigorous" legal defense of the man. He said 
although the quantity of marijuana seized far exceeds the one ounce 
allowed under state law, the group will use an affirmative defense to 
prove that he needed the quantity for his medical needs.

The man is not a registered medical marijuana user, Daubert said. But 
his medical records will provide more than enough evidence that he 
has a qualifying condition and needs the drug to help ease his 
suffering in his final months of life.

"We will bring in experts on dosage, horticulture and quantity 
issues," Daubert said. "This will be potentially a major 
precedent-setting case in Montana."
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