MARIJUANA LAW FACES FIRST LEGAL TEST

Tacoma - David Teatsworth say's he's no criminal -- he was legally
growing marijuana to help sick people under the state's new medical
marijuana law.

But Pierce County prosecutors who charged Teatsworth with unlawful
manufacture of a controlled substance say the amount of pot he was
growing -- 157 plants -- far exceeds the boundaries of the marijuana
initiative approved by voters last fall.

The disagreement could turn Teatsworth's case into a legal test of the
law.

Teatsworth, 43, pleaded innocent to the charge Thursday. He said Green
Cross, which supplies medicinal marijuana to patients who have a
doctor's recommendation, had contracted with him to grow the drug for
11 people.

He agreed to raise the crop because he knew how to raise plants and
was unemployed, he said.

"We had passed a law. I thought everything was OK. I am not a
criminal," Teatsworth said in an interview at the Pierce County Jail.

"The Green Cross lawyers told me everything was legal because I was
acting as a caregiver for the 11 people."

Under Initiative 692, people who are too sick to grow their own
marijuana can designate a "caregiver" to do it for them, said Charles
Grisim, director of Green Cross' Pierce County chapter.

But county Prosecutor John Ladenburg said the intitative doesn't give
anyone the right to grow marijuana for more than one other person.

"The initiative doesn't make it legal for one person to become the
marijuana grower for half the state," he said. "If Green Cross thinks
otherwise, then this will become the test case.

Girsim said Green Cross attorneys have advised his organization that
arrangements such as Teatsworth's are legal.

"We've got an imbalance in the number of sick people who can grow
marijuana and the number who need it," Grisim said.