MEDICAL MARIJUANA RETURN HAILED

Court Order Over 5 Pounds Of Pot Seen As New Sign Of Tolerance By Sonoma
County Prosecutors

Medical marijuana advocates said Friday that the court-ordered return of
five pounds of marijuana to a Healdsburg man signifies a new tolerance
by Sonoma County prosecutors and may also be the largest such return of
pot in the state.

The Sonoma County District Attorney's office did not oppose the return
of the marijuana after Richard Thiessen, 62, convinced them he had a
doctor's recommendation to use it.

Thiessen and his wife, Connie, were arrested in late April on suspicion
of marijuana cultivation as a result of 70 plants that were uprooted at
their Pine Flat Road home.

Charges were dropped against Connie Thiessen, 45. Her husband agreed to
plead no contest to misdemeanor possession of more than one ounce in
exchange for felony charges being dropped against him.

Defense attorney Steve Spiegelman said prosecutors agreed to the return
of three pounds, although the amount that was returned in Judge Elliot
Daum's courtroom this week was actually more -- five pounds of buds and
plant material.

Spiegelman and medical marijuana advocates said they are unaware of any
larger returns of medical marijuana since voters passed Proposition 215
four years ago, allowing use with a doctor's recommendation.

Ernest "Doc" Knapp, a spokesman for the Sonoma Alliance for Medical
Marijuana, said Sonoma County prosecutors have recently dropped a number
of cases they would have pursued in the past.

"Three months ago, law enforcement would have tried to nail him to the
wall," Knapp said of Thiessen's case. "It's a trend, absolutely a trend.
There's several other cases they would have prosecuted. They dropped
them after they came out with the guidelines."

Sonoma County prosecutors in May agreed to guidelines that allow
patients to have as many as 99 plants that produce three pounds. Most
other California counties that specify an allowable quantity of
marijuana limit it to smaller amounts.

The three-pound limit was proposed by the Sonoma Alliance and approved
by District Attorney Mike Mullins and the county law enforcement chiefs
association.

Medical marijuana proponents said the guidelines were overdue and a sign
that authorities are open to possession of larger amounts following two
high-profile prosecutions in Sonoma County that resulted in acquittals.

In one trial that ended in January, a Santa Rosa medical marijuana user
was found not guilty of cultivation in connection with more than 100
total plants seized on two occasions from his home.

In a second case in April, two defendants were acquitted who were
growing 899 plants in Petaluma -- along with an additional 15 pounds
they possessed -- to supply a San Francisco marijuana buyers club.

Knapp said he is generally pleased with the new guidelines and believes
police and prosecutors are finally "moving toward the spirit and intent
of Proposition 215," which allowed for the use of medical cannabis by
ill people.

Mullins could not be reached for comment Friday and the prosecutor who
handled the Thiessen case also was unavailable.

Spiegelman acknowledged that his client's first doctor gave
"questionable approval" for Thiessen to use marijuana for pain he
suffers as a result of operations to both shoulders and partial removal
of a lung. He said once another doctor provided a written
recommendation, the District Attorney's Office was very cooperative in
allowing the pot to be returned.

"This would have been unheard of a few months ago, when he didn't have
the right approval and they still allowed him to get (the marijuana)
back," Spiegelman said.