DEPUTIES SEIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Phillipsville log truck driver Larry Ford was trying to do the right thing
when he invited sheriff's deputies to inspect the marijuana garden he grows
under California's medical marijuana law.

In response to his phone call, five Humboldt County Sheriff's Department
Drug Enforcement Unit deputies and Sgt. Wayne Hanson, unit commander,
arrived at Ford's property Tuesday.

The officers took 36 of the 40 plants Ford was growing for himself and three
other people with marijuana prescriptions.

The incident, and others like it, may lead to a class-action lawsuit against
the Sheriff's Department, asking for a restraining order to protect medical
marijuana gardens.

Since it was approved four years ago by voters, Proposition 215, the
Compassionate Use Act, has caused controversy and confusion at the state and
local levels. There is no statewide policy on how law enforcement should
accommodate the vaguely worded law, leaving counties to make their own --
often widely different -- policies.

In Humboldt County, a 215 enforcement ordinance in the hands of the County
Counsel is at least months away from possible ratification. It was drafted
by a committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors.

In the meantime, as Ford and his friends can attest, it is unclear what is
allowed under 215, and the decision is often made by officers in the field.

"I don't mind playing by their rules," Ford said. "I just don't like them
changing the rules. I think they did something wrong."

Ford and others, including Garberville sheriff's substation Sgt. Mike
Downey, said that in Humboldt County, the standard for Prop. 215 patients,
who are allowed to grow their own marijuana, has been that up to 10 plants
or two pounds of processed marijuana are allowed per patient.

That semiofficial policy is the result of the District Attorney's office
telling law enforcement agencies that it will not prosecute Prop. 215
patients who have 10 plants or less.

Ford, a Vietnam War veteran, thought he was in compliance with the local 215
policy when he invited deputies to his land. He was growing 10 plants each
for himself, his girlfriend, a man who lives off the property and for Jack
Kamm, a woodworker who has lived on Ford's land for five years.

Ford said that Hanson and his subordinates took all the plants being grown
for Kamm and the other man, because they did not reside at Ford's address.
They left two plants each for Ford and his girlfriend, who were on the
property when the deputies visited, because Hanson reasoned that each plant
would yield a pound of smokable marijuana.

Kamm said he lives in two rooms on the property, one in Ford's house,
because he works late in his woodshop, and room in another house. Two log
truck drivers, who have to wake before dawn, also live on the property. He
said he has been receiving mail at Ford's address, which is listed on his
215 prescription.

Hanson, who recently replaced Sgt. Steve Knight as commander of the DEU, did
not return phone calls from the Times-Standard.

Sheriff Dennis Lewis said Hanson had the authority to use his own judgment
in 215 cases. Lewis added that he was comfortable with Hanson's actions on
Tuesday.

The Sheriff's Department has not accepted the district attorney's 215
guidelines, Lewis said.

"One of the reasons is that we've had some people with monster plants that
would yield six or seven pounds," he said.

District Attorney Terry Farmer was not available for comment.

Ford, who said he has some experience growing marijuana, and was arrested
for illegal cultivation in 1980, disagreed. A good plant yields between four
and 10 ounces of smokable buds, he said, and he doesn't use the twigs and
leaves. Ford added that he has not grown marijuana in the years between his
arrest and when he received his prescription.

The plants that the deputies took on Tuesday ranged from two to eight feet
in height, Ford said, and had not started to bud. There was no way that
Hanson could have accurately estimated the yield of the plants, he said.

"It's like looking at a tomato plant and saying, 'Yep, that plant's going to
produce 65 tomatoes,' " he said.

Ed Denson, a Redway defense attorney who belongs to the committee that wrote
the draft of the county's 215 ordinance, said a team of attorneys will
probably file a class-action lawsuit over incidents where they believe the
deputies overstepped their authority in destroying marijuana plants grown
for legitimate medical use.

The suit would ask for a restraining order that would prevent deputies from
destroying plants in Prop. 215 gardens unless a court decides that too much
is being grown.

When law enforcement believes a 215 patient is growing too much marijuana,
the patient often faces criminal charges and has to justify personal needs
in court, Denson said.

He recalled one local case in which a chronically ill man who had been
growing 70 plants was acquitted of criminal cultivation by a jury, and added
that subjects in a small federal study on medical marijuana have been
receiving seven pounds of government-grown marijuana a year since the 1970s.

As it is now, even if a person convinces a jury that they need a large
number of plants, that garden will have been destroyed long before the trial
even begins, Denson said.

Those people can petition the county for monetary restitution, but Denson
said he did not know of a single person who has received anything.

Kamm said he is afraid that if he joins the lawsuit he will be arrested for
criminal cultivation.

"But I don't care," he said. "I'm going to push this all the way."

He was prescribed marijuana to ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder resulting from his combat experiences in Vietnam, where he was a
gunner on a helicopter stationed 12 miles south of the DMZ, Kamm said.

Kamm said he does not smoke marijuana, but uses it in cooking, a method that
reduces the psychoactive effects.

In addition to the lawsuit, Kamm said he and others may ask the Grand Jury
to investigate the actions of law enforcement in regard to Prop. 215
patients.

Kamm, who characterized the deputies who took his plants as "thugs," said he
was laughed at when he called Farmer to discuss the issue.

"They had no right to come out and do what they did," Kamm said.

Jacob Lehman covers public safety and law enforcement. He can be reached at
(707) 441-0512 or jlehman@times-standard.com