YOU WOULD SMOKE, TOO, IF IT HAPPENED TO YOU

Timothy Garon Lost Out on a Potential Liver Transplant, in Part
Because He Was Using Pot to Ease Hepatitis Symptoms. Now His Son Is
Being Charged for Growing the Weed.

In the downstairs section of Lennon Garon's house, the South
Snohomish County Narcotics Task Force entered a den draped in black
plastic. A combination of fluorescent and high-powered grow lights
hung from the ceiling. Below the lights, 69 marijuana plants
photosynthesized. The room also contained fans, fertilizer, and a
carbon-dioxide generator to support the horticulture project.

In another downstairs room, buds dried in a suspended net over
plastic bags filled with already-processed pot. Officers also found
two stacks of cash. One contained $860, the other $1,850 and was
labeled "rent."

Garon, 34, wasn't home at the time, but his roommate Matthew Dir was.
Dir, 39, told police, as they went through the house around 8 a.m.
last April 4, that he had hepatitis C and smoked pot with the
approval of his doctor.

At that same moment, another user of medical marijuana--Garon's
father, Timothy Garon--was dying from the same disease. And the pot
from that Mill Creek home had been one of his sources.

The elder Garon had been taking the drug with the approval of his
doctor, Bradley Roter, for more than a year. Then in the fall of
2007, according to Roter, Garon was told he would have to stay off
marijuana for six months in order to qualify for a spot on the
University of Washington Medical Center's liver-transplant list. UW
has a policy that anyone getting a transplant must be clean and sober
for that length of time prior to going on the list, Roter says.

"The transplant committee looks at all drugs the same," he explains.
"They approach marijuana the same as IV heroin use."

According to Roter, Garon went off marijuana in October 2007. In
April of this year, as the six months ended, the UW transplant
committee told Garon he would also need to complete a 60-day program
of counseling and other treatment to ensure he stayed off pot
following a transplant, Roter says. Garon didn't last that long. He
died May 1, and his case received wide media coverage.

Adding insult to injury, his son now may go to prison for the pot he
supplied his dad.

In November 1998, state voters passed I-692. which legalized
marijuana for medical use. The law also allows designated care
providers for ailing patients to possess and grow the drug.

But the law doesn't prevent anyone, including a transplant committee,
from making decisions based on someone's marijuana use--legal or not.
The University of Washington declined to comment on Garon's case, but
released a statement saying that marijuana use is never the sole
reason for denying someone a transplant. The decision to put someone
on the list is based on their likely outcome.

I-692 also doesn't change the way law enforcement regards grow
operations, says Lynnwood Police spokesperson Shannon Sessions.
"Basically we don't make that decision, if it was medical marijuana
or not," Sessions explains. "We process the case the same way." All
evidence is turned over to the county prosecutor, who makes the call
on whether or not the grow was medical and therefore legal.

The elder Garon himself was busted while sick. In July 2007, the
South Snohomish County Narcotics Task Force tracked a Mountlake
Terrace marijuana-growing operation that led to his home. Last
December a Snohomish judge issued a search warrant for the home,
turning up 100 marijuana plants. Timothy Garon was charged with
felony manufacture of a controlled substance. The court set bail at
$10,000. Five months later, he died.

Douglas Hiatt, Tim Garon's attorney and a medical-marijuana advocate,
says Lennon Garon began growing marijuana as his father became sicker
and unable to grow it himself--something allowed under state law.
Lennon also began providing pot to Dir, who was seeing the same
doctor as the elder Garon.

On August 12 of this year, four months after police searched the
house, Dir was charged with a felony controlled substance violation
for the manufacture of marijuana. The same charge was filed against
Garon on September 8.

Sessions says police determined that the amount of marijuana in Dir
and Garon's home went beyond the limits allowed under state law--a
60-day supply. But the law doesn't include any specifics on what
constitutes two months' worth of pot.

Of the 12 states that allow medical marijuana use, Washington is the
only one that doesn't specify how much pot--in either processed or
plant form--a patient can have. Allowable amounts in other states
range from one ounce of usable pot, three immature plants, and three
mature (Alaska), to 24 ounces, 18 immature plants, and six mature
(Oregon). Washington Department of Health spokesperson Tim Church
says his agency recently closed public comment on a proposal that
mimics the Oregon rules; the agency may or may not adopt the proposal.

According to a state courts database, the grow bust was the first
time Lennon Garon has been in serious legal trouble in the state. But
since then, things haven't gone so well. On Sept. 14, Garon was
arrested again in Chelan County and charged with possession of
marijuana, use of drug paraphernalia, and driving under the influence.