MEDICAL POT DEBATE STIRRED BY ARREST IN GLENWOOD

For Chris Peckat, marijuana is medicine.

Like his mother, his uncle and his grandmother, he has a hereditary
spinal-cord disorder that causes his legs to become gradually weaker and
stiffer.

When he walks, the 20-year-old El Jebel man leans heavily on a straight
black cane, dragging his crooked legs beneath him, his feet bent inward. A
lump bulges from his waist where a pump feeds a slow drip of muscle
relaxants into his body. That helps ease the tightening muscles, Peckat
said, but it doesn't stop the pain.

Marijuana does, he said. He smokes it twice a day -- once in the afternoon,
and again before bed.

"At night, my feet are just throbbing. Bam! Bam!" he said. "I take a couple
puffs. A couple minutes later, I feel pretty good."

Peckat has dealt with this condition, called spastic paraparesis, for about
three years, through five surgeries. Doctors say with a relentless regimen
of daily exercise he might beat it, Peckat said, but in the meantime, he
faces sometimes-crippling pain every day.

Last November, Colorado voters made Peckat's medicine a legal drug for
people who suffer diseases with symptoms that may be eased by marijuana.
But in May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled using marijuana is still a federal
crime.

That leaves people like Peckat caught between a rock and a hard place.

Local law enforcement feel caught in the same bind. Last week, Peckat
became a sort of test case in the valley, when he came before Glenwood
Springs' municipal court on a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession.

"The law is pretty messed up right now," said Glenwood Springs City
Attorney Teresa Williams, who decided to not prosecute Peckat on the
charge. "We've got Colorado on one side and the Supreme Court on the other
and I just don't want to fight that fight."

On May 20, Glenwood police charged Peckat after he was found smoking pot in
a room at Glenwood Springs' Homestead Inn. Peckat had left his prescription
at home.

He hadn't registered for a state identification card that would exempt him
from prosecution. Also, police said, Colorado's Amendment 20, which
legalized medical marijuana, had not yet gone into effect yet when they
confronted him.

But after looking at the details of the case, Williams said, she decided
not to prosecute.

"He was obviously debilitated. He had a prescription from his doctor. He
was in the process of getting his card from the state," she said. And, she
noted, police found Peckat with his pot pipe, but no marijuana.

"I just didn't feel like that rose to the level of a violation," she said.

On this case, looking at those circumstances, she said, dropping the case
was "in the interest of justice." But Williams said she couldn't speculate
about future cases.

"This is the first case I've heard of coming up in municipal court," said
Carolynne White, staff attorney for the Colorado Municipal League. "It's
pretty rare."

As similar cases appear, White said, it will likely be up to each
municipality to figure out how to handle it.

"Each law enforcement agency and each city attorney and each judge is going
to have to figure out how to deal with it," White said. "I see this
primarily as a conflict between the state and the federal government."

The next time it happens in Glenwood, Police Lt. Lou Vallario said, there
will be another arrest.

"It really does put us in the middle of it," he said. "Our department is
going to take the line that it's illegal unless they can prove that it's
legal."

Basalt police are taking the same stance.

"We're treating it like an affirmative defense," said Basalt Chief of
Police Keith Ikeda.

Like pleading self-defense, he said, suspects may have a right to smoke it,
but they'll have to prove it in court.

Not so in Aspen.

"We're simply going to follow state law," said Aspen Chief of Police Joe
Cortez.

As long as the user has the state-issued card and just enough pot for
personal use, he said, police will treat it as legal.

In Carbondale, Police Sgt. Greg Knott said his department has yet to talk
about what it would do.

Bob Weiner, chief deputy district attorney for the 9th Judicial District,
said his office finds itself in a similar bind as local law enforcement.

"Obviously under the supremacy clause (of the constitution), the federal
government is supreme to that of the state," said Weiner, who knew of no
medical marijuana cases seen by his office. "However, what that means in
real terms when you've got an issue like this is yet to be determined.
That's why we would have to look at it case by case."

A half-burnt joint tucked James Dean-style behind his double-pierced ear,
Peckat may never be a poster boy for medical marijuana. But if he is a
rebel, he has a cause, and in Colorado, it's a legal one.

He admits to being no stranger to pot. He started smoking it in junior
high, he said, years before his condition was diagnosed. And he enjoys it.

But, Peckat said, he had quit smoking marijuana before he learned that he
could use it to help ease his pain. When he found out Colorado law may
allow him to obtain pot legally for his condition, he talked with a doctor
in Basalt who later issued him a prescription for the drug. Since getting
that prescription in April, Peckat has been smoking it twice a day.

"I back him 100 percent on this," said his stepmother Tonja Peckat, who
said she can see an improvement in him since he began using marijuana to
help with the pain. He's less hunched over, she said, and better able to
cope with daily life.

"I look at it this way," she said. "To each his own. I'm not like an
advocate for juveniles to use it, but if they say it helps them, and
there's medical evidence proving that it does help people, then I'm all for
it."

Across Colorado, 32 people have been issued state medical marijuana ID
cards, and four more are pending.

But even if state law says it's legal to smoke it, obtaining marijuana is
not so easy. Before his citation, Peckat said, he grew it himself -- three
two-foot plants grown indoors with special lights. That's allowed by
Colorado's Amendment 20. After his run-in with the law, Peckat said, he
threw out those plants.

Technically, he isn't quite legal anyway. Although he has the paperwork, he
still has not paid the $140 registration fee to get the card that could
exempt him from prosecution. Peckat, who runs a business installing home
and car entertainment systems, said he is trying to raise funds to pay for
the annual fee.

Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar, who personally opposed the medical
marijuana amendment, determined in May that the Supreme Court's ruling
didn't invalidate the state law, but, he said, growing and possessing the
drug is still against federal law.

On that, state and federal authorities agree.

"We will prosecute. Period," said Steven Karkos, group supervisor for the
Drug Enforcement Agency in Denver, who said his agency issued a
one-paragraph statement clarifying that the federal government's policy on
marijuana had not changed.

"We're status quo," he said. "You do it. You grow it. You smoke it. You pay
for it."