DR. REEFER'S BUSINESS GOES TO POT

Advocate Of Marijuana's Medicinal Qualities Moving On After Prison Sentence

Pierre Werner and his mom, Reyna Barnett, stand Thursday in front of a
billboard for Dr. Reefer, a medical marijuana referral agency operated
by Barnett. Werner was recently released from prison after he was
caught growing dozens of pot plants, which he says were for medical
purposes.

A couple of years back, a guy named Pierre Werner went to prison. It
made the papers. It was his own fault.

The prison sentence followed Werner getting caught growing many dozens
of marijuana plants in his house, which he swears he was doing for
medical purposes.

The growing of the pot plants came after much pot smoking -- a lot of
it, he admitted, had nothing to do with the drug's medicinal qualities.

All that pot smoking came after a prison stint in New Jersey for,
well, for selling lots and lots of pot.

The Jersey time came after an episode involving nudity and an
ill-fated attempt at walking from Southern California to Las Vegas.

The naked episode came after many other strange things in the life of
Pierre Werner.

The latest bit of strange?

The Dr. Reefer billboard out on Decatur Boulevard near the Las Vegas
Beltway in the southern end of town. It's an ad for a business that
hooks up potential marijuana smokers with a doctor who will help them
do it legally.

"I've always considered marijuana a medicine," said Werner, now 37 and
out of prison. "Just the way it makes me feel."

Werner got out of prison back in November. He is unemployed and lives
with his mother. He's on parole until next month, which means he's
drug tested all the time.

Werner swears he's not smoking right now.

As soon as his parole is over, he's leaving Nevada for good, he said.
He can't take it anymore. And besides, if he gets caught selling pot
here again, he could get locked up for 20 years.

"There's no way I'll sell marijuana in Nevada," he said. "I don't even
want to stay in Nevada. No thanks. Not worth it."

He wants to go to Amsterdam, where he was born, or to California,
which is more friendly to medical marijuana smokers.

Nevada's voters legalized marijuana for medical purposes in 2000.
Patients who have been diagnosed with a qualifying condition (cancer
or glaucoma, among others) are allowed to possess small amounts of the
drug.

They also are allowed to grow it for their own use.

They are not allowed to grow it for lots and lots of people and then
sell it to them.

Which is where Werner got into trouble in 2004.

He was an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana then. He admitted
that he was your basic recreational user before a 1998 incident in
which he simply lost it, psychologically speaking.

In Southern California at the time, he decided he needed to be in Las
Vegas. And so he stripped all his clothes off and began to walk.

That led, eventually, to a diagnosis: bipolar disorder. He was given
lithium, which "turned me into a zombie," he said.

However, pot fixed everything, he said.

He began operating a business in Las Vegas that helped patients
connect with doctors.

He talked of opening a cannabis club, like they have in California. He
grew his own pot. He also decided that he would grow pot for other
patients.

That is illegal.

"My medicine was the best in the world," he said.

According to the state Department of Health, the law for people
registered in the medical marijuana program allows the possession of 1
ounce of marijuana; the possession of four mature marijuana plants;
and the possession of three immature marijuana plants.

When the cops were called to Werner's house, they found dozens of pot
plants.

He went to prison.

And what of his referral business? That's where his mother comes
in.

Whenever patients would call the business while Werner was in prison,
his mom would help them out. He would give her advice over the phone,
from prison, on how to work the system.

Now, she operates the business, drreefer.com, full time. Werner swears
he has nothing to do with it now, other than promoting it.

"It bothered me," said Reyna Barnett, 58, Werner's mom, when asked
about his pot smoking as a young man.

She hated that he smoked pot, that he sold it, and that he went to
prison for it.

And then came the bipolar diagnosis. The zombie-like lithium
experience.

Marijuana seemed to fix him, Barnett said. And so she began to
sympathize.

More and more, she worked with the patients that her son used to
help.

"I like to help people," she said.

What she does, for a fee, is help people fill out the necessary
government paperwork.

She helps them make an appointment with a cause-friendly doctor (any
licensed doctor can prescribe marijuana in Nevada).

Well then, just who is this sympathetic doctor, anyway?

For fear of harming the doctor's reputation, Werner and Barnett won't
reveal any details, other than this one: It is a local pediatrician.