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Posted on 08/19/2007 2:24:04 PM PDT by Wolfie
Pot Find Is The Legal Kind
Oregon -- The officers serving a search warrant on what they thought was a massive marijuana-growing operation had swarmed a greenhouse filled with plants and were poised to kick in the door of a house on the property when the word came.
This was a registered medical marijuana site and it complied with Oregon law.
"This is a frustration for us," said Sgt. Rick Valentine, supervisor of the Jackson County Narcotics Enforcement Team, who coordinated the seven Jackson County Sheriff's Department employees making this search earlier this month. "When we spend time on what turns out to be legal activity, it takes away from what we could do on illegal activities."
But if the misguided raid was a frustration for investigators, it was a shock to the grower, who arrived home to find a fleet of law enforcement sport-utility vehicles parked in his driveway and officers everywhere.
"I felt pretty violated," said the grower, who didn't want to be named in the newspaper. "I'm not a criminal.
"They turned out to be nice-enough guys, but I wish they had talked to me."
He said he wished his neighbors who complained about his 65-foot-long greenhouse filled with bushy marijuana plants had come to him before contacting police.
He could have explained that he is the registered grower for four medical-marijuana patients — a 22-year-old woman who was in a car crash and suffers from back pain, her mother who has multiple sclerosis, a woman with ovarian cancer, and an elderly man who has battled excruciating migraine headaches for years.
But as marijuana — whether in registered medical-marijuana gardens or vast cartel-operated plots in the forest — matures in the Southern Oregon summer, most people, wisely, don't stop to ask questions. They call police.
"Once the plants extend beyond a fence, we get calls on a pretty regular basis," Medford police Lt. Tim Doney said.
Valentine said his agency gets at least one call every day this time of year from someone who has spotted pot plants. He estimates that nearly 90 percent of easily visible gardens are medical marijuana, but investigators must follow up every call.
"It used to be real clear-cut," Doney said. "If you saw marijuana, it was illegal. Now we have to do more homework."
Investigators start by checking the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program database of medical marijuana patients, caregivers and growing sites. The program, operated by the Department of Human Services, shows that as of July 1, the state had issued 14,868 medical marijuana cards statewide, including 1,295 in Jackson County. The number of registered growing sites isn't publicly available.
Under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, each cardholder can have six mature plants, 18 seedlings, and 24 ounces of usable marijuana. A registered grower can grow for up to four cardholders.
But investigators say the law is sometimes abused, and if they have suspicions backed up by observation or witness statements, they will seek a search warrant. They've done that twice this summer, only to find compliant growers, Valentine said.
He said that in his initial survey of the site searched earlier this month, he estimated the greenhouse contained about 300 plants. But when the officers serving the search warrant counted stems, there were only 24 — the number authorized by the four cards the grower displayed at the site.
"The law doesn't say what 'too big of a plant' is," Valentine said.
The grower said the family friends and acquaintances who chose him to produce their medical marijuana selected him because they knew he could nurture plants.
"I have a good horticultural resume," he said, touting his experience on two organic farms in Washington. He has grown medical marijuana in the Rogue Valley for two years.
He creates organic compost teas to feed the plants and for his efforts over a six-month growing season to produce a year's worth of medicine, he is reimbursed $15,000 to $25,000, he said. State law allows cardholders to reimburse growers for supplies and utilities.
He said he grows a marijuana strain that produces a high volume with a low amount of active chemicals. He described it as "fluffy," but still noted that each mature plant produces between one and a half and two pounds of usable marijuana. The grower said advocacy groups around the state help facilitate transfers of excess marijuana. State law allows a cardholder to give marijuana to another cardholder if no money is exchanged, but authorities said there is no clear provision for clubs to swap or share marijuana.
"For voters, the intent was good," Valentine said of the medical marijuana law Oregon voters approved in 1998. "They wanted to help people who were suffering, but this has gone beyond what people envisioned."
He said permitting smaller amounts and requiring growers to submit to compliance checks would make enforcement easier for police.
He estimates that JACNET currently spends nearly 50 percent of its time investigating complaints about marijuana ultimately found to be compliant, medical growing operations.
"It takes a lot of time out of our schedule that could be spent on methamphetamine or heroin, which is increasing here," Valentine said.
The grower searched this month said he understands how people can have fears about drugs and drug-related violence in their neighborhoods when they see marijuana growing.
"If I saw something that looked dangerous next to my home, I would want it checked out, too," he said.
However, he said people shouldn't feel threatened just because they don't understand the medical marijuana program and assume all growers are criminal.
"I run a clean operation," he said. "I have my own family to keep safe."
He said the greenhouse shields neighbors from the scent and view of his controversial crop. He reiterates, though, that a majority of voters has authorized operations like his.
"Like it or not, it's the law," he said.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I don’t see a problem, other than the police trying to enforce a very strange law against growing a plant.
Those must be some huge plants and a lot of "medicine" for only four people.
Like DUH - they couldn’t check the legality of the operation prior to investing time and calling out the SWAT teams to invade a legal grower...DUH - they obviously had the address. Back to what you do best - giving speeding tickets to law abiding citizens and eating donuts and coffee. Actually, the modern warriors are into Starbucks now...everyday in Hillsboro the place is crawling with them.....lattes and orange cream cupcakes...brave boys.
People need to mind their own business. Yet these same folks won't call police if they see illegals in the street.
We had a woman who had the medicinal ok to grow for her own use and (why this guy does not want his name/area made public) some guy who knew her son and his buddies (word of mouth) went to her home murdered her to steal the marijuana plants.
Hope this legal grower has protection.
Sounds like he was doing a good horticultural job.
I wonder how good his tomato crop is this year?
I have not found any great ones locally and have freinds looking for some at Market Place ect..tomatoes I love going on my summer tomato diet.
Last year was awesome I eat two a day raw no problem.
Anyone know of any awesome ones in their area? Please Freepmail me the grower so I can see about getting some shipped to us.
Again I am talking about Tomato’s.
Even if they legalize pot the situation could possibly be the same.
They would probably tax and regulate it like liquor and illegal gardens would treated like moonshine stills
God help us when they figure out how to tax sunshine and rain!!
Idiot cops and busybody neighbors. How many terrorists sneak across the border every day because we are obsessed with something as harmless as weed? If beer and wine are legal, then pot should be no different. Lets direct resources to where they are needed: finding terror cells that are already in this country because we have a porous border and an immigration policy that will strip search grandmas but ignore arabs because we want to be politically correct.
/mark
Hey, Wolfie, weren't you the one who said in another thread that this was a ridiculously high amount?
Anyways, let's make it easy and say 2 pounds per plant times 6 plants per "patient". That's one pound per month. Approximately 10 joints per day.
Some migraine, huh?
“Yet these same folks won’t call police if they see illegals in the street.”
Why would anyone call the police if they saw illegals in the street? Even assuming you could tell that they were illegals, the police won’t do anything. They will hardly arrest them when they are caught committing a crime. Total waste of time and energy.
Few people who graduate from government run (so-called) “education” system know that public police are a relatively recent invention almost unknown to the authors of the Bill of Rights. We are now getting to see yet more reasons why their powers must be constrained, lest more innocent lives are snuffed out in the name of protecting the public.
Worse, the flip side of making historically legal plants illegal is the widespread compromises of the law enforcement community and system. It must be happening, given the vast ocean of drugs flowing into the country, yet how little gets intercepted.
(Now, I feel almost silly using the phrase “historically legal”, but I do it for the sake of readers who carelessly assume that today’s Welfare-Warfare State is the way it was when the Bill of Rights was ratified. In that era, government did not dream of regulating plants, other than a short-lived attempt to tax the booze distilled from corn. IOW, up until the lifetime of my grandfather, government did not think it had the power to regulate plants and chemicals, let alone think that citizens would allow it to assume that power. Today’s compliance-oriented citizen is woefully ignorant of how liberty-oriented citizens used to be.)
I wondered about the line “A good horticultural resume”. Does that mean he made her like the opera? Couldn’t resist.
In 1807, Thomas Jefferson prohibited trade with Europe using the power of the Commerce Clause. He also prohibited alcohol sales to the Indians in 1805. (James Madison, who wrote the Commerce Clause, was his Secretary of State.)
In 1842, Congress forbade the importation of obscene literature or pictures from abroad. In 1884, the exportation or shipment in interstate commerce of livestock having any infectious disease was forbidden.
''The power to regulate commerce among the several States is granted to Congress in terms as absolute as is the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.''
-- Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 622 (1885)
Same county but illegal grow.
Authorities: Mexican drug cartel operating in Oregon | KATU - Portland, Oregon | Local & Regional
Address:http://www.katu.com/news/local/9186377.html Changed:5:40 PM on Sunday, August 19, 2007
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