MARIJUANA GROWER SENTENCED TO 3 YEARS

Former Candidate For Alderman Says His Crop Was Strictly Medicinal

Unsuccessful aldermanic candidate Michael O. Hageman, whose basement
marijuana patch landed him in jail in the middle of his primary campaign,
was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for what he insisted was
an exclusively medicinal cannabis crop.

With no evidence to the contrary from a prosecutor, the eccentric retired
carpenter, one-time teacher and Mensa member maintained that the 500-plus
marijuana plants that thrived in his underground garden were cultivated
solely for the sick and dying.

"The laws do not fully recognize marijuana as a medicine," Hageman
complained to Circuit Judge Clare L. Fiorenza before he was sentenced.

During a 25-minute, rambling address touching on topics including
ineffective medicine, foreign drug laws and even the parable of the Good
Samaritan, Hageman denounced the state's marijuana laws for ignoring the
plant's pain-killing properties.

And, he sounded like a papa bragging on his offspring whenever he talked
about "Mikajuana," his own breed of pot.

"I was, and still am, very proud of my plants," Hageman said at the start
of his remarks.

"I bred it, your honor, very carefully," he said later.

"It doesn't get you stoned," he noted. "It takes the pain away."

But Hageman's explanations, Fiorenza concluded, were as "misguided" as his
efforts to help the ailing, telling Hageman his defense "might best be
addressed to the Legislature."

"This court is obligated to enforce the law," Fiorenza said. "No one's
above the law.

"You were attempting to help some people, but your actions were very
illegal . . . and you took the risk."

Finally, Fiorenza added: "You don't have a license to be a doctor. You're
not a scientist."

Hageman, who developed a green thumb in the greenhouse at Custer High
School, received the truth-in-sentencing term from Fiorenza on a felony
charge of manufacturing more than 50 marijuana plants. When he is finished
with his prison term, Hageman, 57, must serve six years of extended
supervision in the community and pay a $1,000 fine.

He also was sentenced to 90 days in jail on a disorderly conduct charge
stemming from an allegation that he tried to hire an informant to
permanently injure the hands of an artist Hageman suspects of turning him
in to police on marijuana growing charges.

The case against Hageman developed last spring when he ran unsuccessfully
against Ald. Suzanne Breier in the 14th District.

Hageman was arrested March 10 after police raided his home and business and
seized more than 500 marijuana plants that were the product of an elaborate
cultivation effort.

Assistant District Attorney Denis Stingl said the "potential quantity" of
the marijuana, which included 16 seven-foot plants, as well as Hageman's
attitude about what he had done warranted a prison term of 3 1/2 years
followed by four years of extended supervision.

"He does not believe that he did anything wrong," Stingl told Fiorenza,
noting that Hageman was breaking the law at the same time he was running
for public office. "He believes that he had a right to do this."

Defense attorney Craig Mastatuono recommended probation for Hageman, noting
he had no prior record, cooperated fully when arrested and, most
importantly, gave his marijuana away to the ill, people with glaucoma,
multiple sclerosis, AIDS and cancer, among other ailments.

"Her pain would stop when she used it," Mastatuono said of a massage
therapist with lupus and liver and kidney infections who used Hageman's
"Mikajuana." "She would sleep through the night."

But when Mastatuono finished his concise, orderly argument for probation,
Hageman launched into a wide-ranging diatribe that went well beyond what
put him in jail in March and sent him to prison Wednesday.

"You have to smoke one ton of marijuana a day," Hageman asserted at one
point, "for it to be toxic."