JUDGE FINDS MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENT GUILTY IN POT-GROWING CASE

PORT ORCHARD - A Kitsap County Superior Court judge Friday found a
card-carrying medical marijuana patient guilty of growing pot, saying
that under the law, the Bremerton man was "not a qualifying patient."

Judge Anna M. Laurie ruled that Robert Dalton's use of marijuana for
chronic lower back pain didn't meet the conditions of the citizen's
initiative passed by voters in 1998, or any subsequent amendment to
it by the Legislature.

His lawyers, Jeanette Dalton and Douglas Hiatt, had "failed to
sustain his burden" on the point that his pain couldn't be
"unrelieved by standard medical treatments and medications," such as
opiate-based painkillers, she said, adding that marijuana for
medicinal purposes should be a "drug of last resort."

West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team detectives served a search
warrant on Dalton's property in August 2007. In court documents, they
said they found 88 plants, which they said was well beyond the 60-day
supply law for medical marijuana patients.

But Laurie's decision didn't even consider arguments over the
currently contested definition of what a 60-day supply is. She called
the issue "a moot point," in the case.

The Department of Health has been tasked by the Legislature with
defining a "60-day" supply. The current recommendation for
card-carrying patients is up to 24 ounces, with up to six mature
plants and 18 immature plants.

Hiatt was "very disappointed" with Laurie's verdict, reiterating what
he'd argued in court: that Laurie was "second guessing" physician
Thomas Orvald, who recommended Robert Dalton use marijuana.

"If Judge Laurie wants to be a doctor, she should go to medical
school," Hiatt said. "No patient in this state is safe if she's right."

However, Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Cami Lewis called the
decision "the correct result." During closing arguments, deputy
prosecutor Coreen Schnepf had argued that opiate medications were
relieving his pain, and that he needed to have incurable pain by
other medicines to use cannabis.

Hiatt had argued that those opiates made Dalton sick and weren't
effective at quelling his pain.

Dalton faces zero to six months in jail for the felony conviction.
His lawyers will ask the judge at an Oct. 17 hearing to suspend any
sentence pending their appeal.

Jeanette Dalton, who is running for Kitsap County Superior Court in
November, said that while she respected Laurie's decision, but feared
the precedent it would set.

"If other judges apply this strictly constrained of definition, it
will adversely affect patients across this state," she said.

With the conviction, Robert Dalton's medical marijuana card is
nullified, he said following the verdict. He said he's not happy with
the idea of going to opiates for pain control because of their
addictive properties.

"I don't want to be a drug addict," he said. "That's why I chose
medical marijuana."