A CHALLENGING CROP

Growing Medical Marijuana A Risky Undertaking

Sharon Place had grown medical marijuana before, but she was still
impressed by the bountiful crop she had growing last fall on her deck on
the outskirts of Eugene.

A dozen or so "big round monster bushes," some 14 feet tall, were nearing
harvest, their thick branches heavy with potent buds prized by smokers,
medicinal and recreational alike.

The plants, which Place was growing for her ailing son and two other
medical marijuana patients, were "like a whole family project thing," she
said, like a counterculture 4-H project.

Then came the nightmare.

About 11 a.m. Oct. 6, while Place was away, four masked gunmen, one wearing
a "Scream" mask, cut the phone lines and burst into the house, rousting
Place's teen-age sons and demanding money and drugs.

Her then-14-year-old son awakened to the sight of a gun barrel pointed at
his head.

The boy suffers from a severe case of gastroesophageal reflux disease and
uses marijuana to stimulate his appetite. He told the thieves the family
didn't have any money and that the marijuana was being grown for medicinal
purposes, to no avail.

The thieves kicked in a closet door to steal drying marijuana, cut the
plants on the deck, and fled down the driveway to their car, leaving a
trail of marijuana leaves in their wake.

"They could have killed my children for the marijuana growing there," Place
said.

"I was naive to think it was OK to grow in your back yard. It's not a safe
thing."

It was one of at least four rip-offs of outdoor medical marijuana gardens
in Lane County last fall, when plants were reaching maturity, according to
police.

None of the other thefts, though, were as violent or unsettling as the
Place case.

The thefts highlight just one of the perils and challenges of cultivating
marijuana, a hardy plant that's easy to grow but difficult to grow well.
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act permits people to use marijuana for
medical reasons, but its restrictions leave many patients grasping for a
reliable supply.

John Sajo, executive director of Voter Power, a Portland patient advocacy
group, estimates that just 10 percent to 20 percent of medical marijuana
patients have a steady supply of marijuana.

"There's a crying need for a dispensary or someplace where people can go
and buy their medicine," he said. "That's the biggest problem with the law."

But the law didn't establish a mechanism for creating a centralized supply
of medicine. It leaves patients to their own devices, and Sajo said most
sick people with debilitating medical conditions aren't able to take care
of a marijuana garden.

"A lot of people are trying to grow their medicine and failing miserably,"
he said. "It takes the right conditions and knowing what to do when things
go wrong."

Someone diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live will scarcely
have the time - much less the energy - to grow a crop before he or she dies.

That's where groups such as the Eugene Cannabis Grow-Op hope to fill in the
gaps. The idea is to connect patients with reliable caregivers (people
legally designated by patients to grow their marijuana), and to educate
people on effective ways to grow, said Todd Dalotto, one of the founders.

The Grow-Op also plans to establish a "cushion" program to provide new
patients with marijuana until their crops mature, he said.

That's already happening in Portland, where Voter Power members grow a
seven-plant garden. They try to grow big plants, and then give away the
excess to card-holders in need, Sajo said. The law permits a card-holder to
give up to an ounce of dried marijuana away to another card-holder.

"At the last event, we gave medicine to 30 to 40 people," he said. "We're
trying to give people a hand getting started and instill in them the value
that if someone helped you, once you get going you can help out other people."

Once patients have a card from the state, the first thing they need to do
is obtain seeds or clones, which are cuttings that can grow into a new plant.

A key decision is whether to grow indoor or out. A patient is allowed to
grow three mature, or budding plants, and four immature plants.

An outdoor garden will yield bigger plants, but poses several problems. For
one, such gardens will yield only one or two crops a year, so patients
trying to grow enough marijuana to last for an entire year will likely be
in violation of the legal limit of three dried ounces.

Another problem, as Place found, is security. Particularly in an urban
setting, it can be difficult to grow without arousing the ire of suspicious
neighbors or catching the attention of unscrupulous stoners looking for an
easy score.

"If you're growing (medical) marijuana, you're not going to want to tell a
lot of people you're doing that," said Detective Sgt. Byron Trapp of the
Lane County sheriff's office.

"It's a product sought after by a certain population and some are going to
take extraordinary means to take your property."

Growing indoors presents its own challenges.

The plant limit provides little margin for error, and for some patients
growing smaller plants indoors, seven plants simply don't yield enough
cannabis to sustain their needs.

"The numbers have everyone's hands tied," said Joe, a medical marijuana
patient who requested his last name not be used. "A beginning grower will
probably lose 15 plants before he gets one."

Growing indoors costs more, because of the need to buy lights and other
equipment. And patients must find room in their homes to grow.

Joe has set up a sophisticated, drip-irrigated growing operation in his
two-bedroom Eugene-area apartment. He's also an experienced greenhouse
gardener and a hobbyist who has the time and skills to devote to his indoor
garden.

Joe was in a car accident that nearly tore off one of his legs and left him
with chronic, debilitating back pain. After years of taking
anti-inflammatories and other painkillers that were damaging his liver, he
found smoking marijuana helped him deal with pain and was far easier on his
body.

Joe is an advocate of growing marijuana hydroponically, in which the plant
isn't rooted in dirt but in a loose, soil-free material such as gravel or
vermiculite. Roots grow directly in water mixed with nutrients, so
adjusting the nutrient solution is far easier than trying to amend soil,
Joe said.

Growing hydroponically takes less space, and the plants are far lighter and
easier to move than plants rooted in dirt.

Growing indoors isn't cheap. Joe's setup costs about $500, which includes
lights, timers, pumps, tubing, fans and other equipment.

But it's compact. In half of one closet, he has his four immature plants
growing under fluorescent lights. In half of another closet, he has three
mature plants growing under sodium lights that emit a red glow that
encourages blooming.

Joe is still working to get his indoor garden on a reliable rotation so he
always has a steady supply of marijuana.

"It can be done on a small scale," Joe said. "This is the way to do it."

But the fear of getting ripped off remains a real concern for many medical
marijuana patients.

Sharon Place is still wrestling with how to provide her son with a steady
supply of marijuana in the wake of last fall's robbery.

"It's my concern he has the highest quality," she said, because then he
doesn't have to smoke as much.

Her experience growing medical marijuana goes back to the late 1980s, a
decade before Oregon voters made it legal when they passed Measure 67 in 1998.

In 1989, when Place was doing volunteer hospice work in Southern Oregon,
she said she was arrested and prosecuted for growing marijuana.

She was convicted, but because she was growing it for medical purposes, she
said the judge gave her no jail time.

Since the theft last October, other caregivers have helped out and given
her marijuana, but Place would rather grow it herself.

Yet her son remains spooked by the robbery.

"He's uncomfortable with it," she said. "We kept a quiet, secluded
lifestyle. We took all the precautions we could take, and four masked men
still came to rob us."

Place said she doesn't know how the thieves found out about her plants.
Perhaps they spotted them with binoculars from the road, she said, or
perhaps a worker who came to the house noticed the plants and let the news
slip to the wrong person.

Place said the family may move to a new home so the thieves won't know
where they live.