MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROWER HURRIES TO REPLANT AFTER RAID

Clackamas County officials say Shawn Flury of Oregon Green Cross lacked
documentation for the operation's size

A medical marijuana group was pushing Friday to replant its crop after
Clackamas County Sheriff's Office investigators seized more than 100 plants
in a greenhouse raid earlier this week near Woodburn.

Shawn Flury of Oregon Green Cross said he is collecting plants from other
medical marijuana groups around the state and will get new plants in the
ground as quickly as possible.

He said the group serves about 35 patients who depend on a free ounce of
marijuana twice a month to ease their ailments.

However, sheriff's officials say they seized the 110 plants from the group's
rented greenhouse on South Elliott Prairie Road because the operation lacked
the documentation needed to grow that many plants.

There have been other raids of people suspected of violating the state's
medical marijuana law, but this week's raid involved an unusually large
number of plants, officials said.

Flury insists he had the documents that show the seized plants were legal.
He thinks a paperwork backlog prevented police from verifying the records
with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, which registers growers and
issues medical marijuana cards to patients.

Oregon's 5-year-old medical marijuana law allows people with "debilitating
medical conditions" to grow no more than seven plants at a time with a
doctor's endorsement. Only three of the seven can be mature plants.

Cardholders must register the growing site with the state. Cardholders also
can designate a caregiver to grow marijuana for them.

The rules allow 30 working days after a grower takes over a cardholder's
plants before the state must be notified. So even if there's nothing in the
state's files on the day of a police raid, a large collection of plants can
turn out to be legal if the paperwork comes in later.

Deputy Angela Brandenburg, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said most of the growing
operations her department investigates involve a person growing a crop at
home for one or two cardholders. Large growing operations also are less
common statewide, said Aaron Cossel, who works in the Oregon Medical
Marijuana Program.

Caregivers who serve several cardholders can have as many as seven plants
per cardholder.

The state doesn't limit the number of patients per caregiver. Nor does it
limit the number of plants that can be grown in a single location, Cossel
said. But each plant must be grown for a specific cardholder.

On the day of the raid, police confirmed with the state that the site was
registered to grow marijuana for only three cardholders. Investigators
seized all the plants at the greenhouse.

Later in the week, they confirmed that the state recently had received seven
more cards for the greenhouse plants.

Investigators determined that most of the plants had been in the ground
longer than the allowed 30-day notification window.

Investigators also couldn't determine which plants belonged to which
cardholders.

Flury expressed confidence he would prevail in the case. He said it would be
hard to prove in court how long the plants had been in the ground.

Flury, who lives in a yurt on the greenhouse property, said that with the 10
medical marijuana cards police confirmed, they should have left at least 70
plants alone. He said he offered to show investigators documentation of more
cards at the group's off-site office, but they didn't look.

Flury, 42, who said he is the group's "master grower," faces charges of
possession, manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance.

Another Oregon Green Cross member, David Thomas Howard, 50, is charged with
possession of a controlled substance. During the raid, investigators found
hashish in his belongings. The purified and highly potent extract of
marijuana isn't covered under the medical marijuana regulations.