Charges Dropped in First Medical Marijuana Court Case

Peter Fimrite, Chronicle North Bay Bureau

The first court case involving the state's Medical Marijuana
Initiative was dismissed yesterday in Sonoma County Superior
Court because of the death of one of the defendants.

The battle over medical marijuana, however, continues in
Marin County with the trial of a podiatrist accused of
keeping a pot farm on his property in Nicasio.

Sonoma County Judge John Gallagher cleared Jason Miller of
charges that he cultivated marijuana at the Santa Rosa home
he shared with his partner and codefendant Alan Martinez.

Kathleen DeLoe, the chief deputy district attorney, said the
charges were dropped mainly because Martinez, the primary
defendant, was killed last month in a car accident,
weakening the case against Miller.

``I felt it would be real hard to convict Mr. Miller by
himself,'' she said.

Miller, 25, and Martinez, 41, were arrested a year ago after
a neighbor called police about 10 small plants growing in
the window of their home in Santa Rosa.

Martinez, an epileptic, said he had been smoking marijuana
for 10 years on the advice of a Southern California
physician who told him it would help prevent seizures.
Miller claimed to be his caregiver and insisted he was
exempt from prosecution under Proposition 215, the Medical
Marijuana Initiative, passed by voters in November.

Martinez was killed July 3 when his car swerved off Bodega
Highway in western Sonoma County and rolled over, possibly
as a result of a seizure. His lawyers said he had been
experimenting with a new medicine and had not used marijuana
since the arrest.

In Marin, testimony continued in the case against Dr. Alan
Ager, a podiatrist arrested in September 1996 for allegedly
growing 135 marijuana plants at his Nicasio home. It is the
first case that has gone to trial in which the Medical
Marijuana Initiative is being used as a defense.

Ager's lawyer, Laurence Lichter, claims his client smoked
pot to reduce back pain suffered in a 1978 car accident and
liked to keep a year's supply on hand. But prosecutors
contend that the large amount of marijuana and the
sophisticated cultivation system found at Ager's home are
clear indications that the weed was being used for more than
just personal consumption.
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