MEDICAL MARIJUANA GARDENS GROW CONCERNS IN CLACKAMAS COUNTY

More and more medical marijuana gardens are sprouting in Clackamas
County, prompting optimism in patients and advocates, alarm from some
neighbors and confusion among police, who have long treated the crops
as a scourge.

From January through July of 2008, the number of medical marijuana
cardholders in the county jumped 23 percent, from 1,207 to 1,481,
according to the Department of Human Services Oregon Medical
Marijuana Program. Statewide, officials have seen a similar increase
- -- 23 percent -- from 15,927 to 19,646.

The growing numbers mean different things to different people: More
people getting the help they need, more people abusing legal
loopholes, more criminals preying on legal growers, more problems for
police officers and courts. When the law views a plant as both
medicine and contraband, nothing is simple.

Increasing Support

Stepping gingerly around 30 towering, bushy plants that produce much
of the marijuana Clackamas County patients use, Paul Stanford,
founder and director of the national nonprofit Hemp & Cannabis
Foundation, said that law enforcement officials, as well as the
general public, are gradually grasping the benefits of medical marijuana.

"Across the board, we're seeing increasing support, and it's so
important. There are so many people who need medicine, but they don't
want to break the law," Stanford said, picking up a fallen, densely
budded branch and tucking it under a wire to dry.

The garden is tended cooperatively by several patients and caregivers
who supply marijuana to cardholders who can't grow their own. Over
the years, it also has produced a great deal of surplus marijuana,
which Stanford provides free and in strictly controlled and reported
quantities to cardholding patients in Clackamas and other counties.

"Of course, the real solution is to legalize (marijuana)," he said.
"But for the most part, it's a positive change in understanding."

Yet the experience of cardholders tends to vary, depending on where
they live. In Clackamas County, police contend some cardholders are
abusing their rights by growing too much marijuana.

A June report by Oregon's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
program -- a federal grant program administered by the Office of
National Drug Control Policy -- states that the medical marijuana law
has been consistently violated and is a major barrier to effective
enforcement and prosecution.

From 2006 to 2007, the number of plants police seized jumped from 77
to 1,013 plants growing indoors, according to program figures. During
that same period, the number of outdoor plants seized jumped from 178
to 494, according to Chris Gibson, director of Oregon's High
Instensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

Yet advocates such as Stanford say police often seize plants growing
legally and that the claim that medical marijuana growers frequently
abuse the system is only a campaign to curtail medical marijuana, and
many local cardholders complain of meddlesome police.

David Langshaw, a Milwaukie-area resident, has for four years been a
cardholder and grown marijuana for himself and others (cardholders
and caregivers can grow for as many as four people).

Yet he knows that could mean neighbors calling police or law
enforcement showing up on his doorstep at any time.

A year and a half ago, he says, a neighbor's call brought a
warrantless police officer to his door, and -- though Langshaw
declined to show the officer his marijuana -- the conversation that
followed left him feeling invaded. Langshaw isn't sure which agency
the officer was from.

"People here have to watch out for that knock-and-talk stuff," he
said. "I know my rights, but I worry about all those other people out
there who think they have to show everything and answer all those questions."

"Sylvia," an Oregon City cardholder who declined to give her name to
protect her privacy, grows her own medical marijuana outside her
home, but keeps the crop covered and has guard dogs. In the past six
years, she said, she's had regular break-in attempts as well as
yearly police visits.

"Yes, it's embarrassing," said Sylvia, a grandmother with maladies
ranging from fibromyalgia to arthritis to migraines. "I think it
would embarrass anyone if police kept coming to their house asking to
count their plants. I feel like they're punishing me for being a sick person."

"Green Medicine"

Police in Clackamas County say they have no intention of persecuting
cardholders but added that dealing with medical marijuana is a murky,
confusing business. While law enforcement in the county hasn't had to
cope with the kind of sprawling, illegal crops that flourish on
public lands in places such as rural Yamhill County, Lt. Dixon
Andrews of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said simple backyard
crops come with their own complexities.

"It's amazing to me how much marijuana people are allowed to grow. I
mean, what are these doctors saying? 'Get high and stay high?'"
Andrews asked, recalling a medical marijuana garden where a
cardholder had exceeded the number of plants he could grow by about 22.

The police confiscated the extra plants, but the raid left Andrews
feeling ill at ease.

"Here we are in a place where someone has broken a law, and in the
past, we would have just cleared it all out. That's what I'm used to
- -- eradication," he said. "But now we go away, taking some and
leaving all these others standing. It's just weird."

Some officers, like Andrews, say they're eager to learn more about
the laws regarding medical marijuana. And in this county, there are
many advocates eager to teach.

Clifford Spencer, a Clackamas-area cardholder, caregiver and medical
marijuana advocate, devotes 40 hours a week to bringing medical
marijuana, coaching and making treatment plans for cardholding
quadriplegics, very ill and dying patients.

He fights tears when he thinks of the pain relief that the "green
medicine" has brought many of them. He despairs that some police
still consider "extreme pain relief" he's witnessed to be corrupt behavior.

The experience of one friend in particular, an AIDS patient who died
long before the 1998 Medical Marijuana law passed, still fuels
Spencer's passion.

The friend suffered excruciating body aches and had tried every kind
of legal drug in an attempt to ease his pain, Spencer said. Instead,
he continued to languish, projectile-vomiting every medicine and bit
of food he tried to keep down. When he tried marijuana, however, his
nausea subsided along with his aches, and he was even able to smile
and joke about "the munchies," Spencer said.

These days, Spencer is part of a co-op of unpaid caregivers who
legally grow and deliver what they call "green medicine" to
cardholding people who live in assisted living and nursing homes.

The caregivers have all seen countless cases of marijuana lessening
pain, often allowing patients to discontinue the heavy painkillers
they take, such as Vicodin, Valium or OxyContin, he says.

"Certainly there's enough research out there on the effectiveness and
safety of (marijuana), and I think the federal government should
recognize that," Spencer said. "Evidence shows the benefits far
outweigh the negatives."

Advocates like Spencer say there must be a middle ground, where
patients who need marijuana can get it more easily, but growers would
have a harder time abusing the system.

During meetings with law enforcement and legislators in Salem,
Spencer said he learned a great deal about the complexities of
Oregon's dilemma with medical marijuana.

"Before that, my experience was with cancer and other patients and
seeing how marijuana could ease suffering and death," he said.

"But at those meetings, law enforcement educated me about some of the
abuses that have gone on," he said. "I used to think law enforcement
was really against it. My experience has been that more and more law
enforcement officers are encountering patients (who are suffering),
and they are hearing their testimony. And, for the most part, they're
becoming more sympathetic."

[sidebar]

THE LAW

The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was passed by Oregon voters on Nov.
3, 1998 and went into effect a month later.

It modified state law to allow patients with a prescription and
conditions ranging from cancer to glaucoma to pain, to cultivate,
possess and use marijuana.

Measure 33 in 2004 sought to extend the law by allowing distribution
centers, but was rejected by voters.