WAS POT FOR PAIN OR FOR PROFIT?

146 PLANTS FOUND AT LOOMIS HOME

How much pot is too much pot when you've got a note from your doctor?

Placer County prosecutors began putting that question to a jury in Auburn on
Tuesday, claiming that a Loomis couple's garden of 146 marijuana plants
would produce more than the relaxation necessary to treat their medical
conditions.

Dr. Michael A. Baldwin and his wife, Georgia, are charged with cultivation
and possession of marijuana for sale in a case that is being watched closely
by both sides waging war over the medical use of the drug.

The Baldwins were arrested at their home Sept. 23 by sheriff's agents who
found taped to the grow room door a physician's letters authorizing each to
use marijuana as treatment for physical ailments that had disrupted their
lives for years.

In an opening statement on behalf of Georgia Baldwin, attorney J. Tony Serra
said it was "sad and cruel and preposterous" to charge the respected,
career-minded pair with possession for sale.

"Intent was not present and cannot be proven," Serra declared.

Both Baldwins received their written recommendations from a national
authority on pain management and "did everything humanly possible to fulfill
the mandate of the law," Proposition 215, California's Compassionate Use
Act, Serra said.

But Deputy District Attorney David H. Tellman told the jury that the
Baldwins abused their prescriptions by nurturing 126 plants in a "nursery"
under their Loomis home and 20 more in a specially constructed grow room in
the garage.

Tellman said his experts will testify that each of the 146 plants could
yield 3 to 6 ounces of bud marijuana, a total in excess of 20 pounds, far
more than necessary to meet their medical needs.

But Serra said the prosecutor's "experts are, in reality, law enforcers who
gained their knowledge by pulling, seizing, destroying and killing these
plants."

He said the defense will produce its own expert, a renowned authority on the
subject, who will testify that the plants seized by officers would not have
been enough to meet the Baldwins' medical needs.

Michael Baldwin's attorney, Laurence J. Lichter, told the jury that his
client "knew he wasn't the greatest gardener in the world" because he had
earlier attempted to grow orchids but failed.

Lichter also said there were no established guidelines for medical users.

"The law doesn't tell anybody how many plants you can grow," he said.

Both attorneys said their clients benefited greatly from the use of
marijuana.

Michael Baldwin, afflicted since childhood with migraine headaches and
chronic back pain, had access to very powerful painkillers as a dentist but
turned instead to cannabis, Lichter said.

And Gloria Baldwin, who came to her marriage to Michael with a
"physiological deficit" that renders her "practically immobile for up to a
day and a half" each month, gave marijuana a try only after she saw the
benefits it brought to her husband and after she had consulted her doctor,
Serra said.

Gloria Baldwin balked at smoking the substance because she "didn't want
smoke in her lungs," so she learned how to use it as a butter in her
cooking, a process that requires more raw material than a joint, Serra
explained.

She couldn't believe it when police "rushed into her life with guns drawn,
handcuffs in hand," and arrested her, Serra told the jury.

"She cried and told them, 'This is legal. Look, there's our recommendation,'
" Serra related.

But the officers "turned the house upside down and carted her off to jail"
and she subsequently was charged with possessing the drug for sale,
"predicated, in the main, on the basis of too many plants," Serra told the
jury.

Tellman argued that the number of plants, combined with the discovery of
small plastic bags and a scale in the kitchen, suggested that the drugs were
intended, at least in part, for sale.