LOUISVILLE MEDICAL-MARIJUANA PATIENT HEADS TO TRIAL

Man Plans to Give Speech at CU Ahead of Trial

BOULDER, Colo. -- A Louisville medical marijuana patient who was
arrested last year on suspicion of possessing more than a legally
allowed amount of the drug is fighting back as he heads to trial in
Boulder County District Court next month.

Jason Lauve, 38, was arrested June 26, 2008, on suspicion of felony
marijuana possession after police searched his home and found more
than 30 marijuana plants. The case is scheduled to go to trial Aug.
3, and Lauve is asking people to support him by attending the trial,
writing letters to the media and contacting the Boulder County
district attorney to "tell him to stop prosecuting sick people."

Lauve, who uses a cane and a wheelchair after breaking his back at
Eldora Mountain Resort in 2004, also is holding a talk Tuesday at the
University of Colorado titled "Medical Marijuana: How Patients and
Caregivers Can Protect Themselves."

"We're depending on the First Amendment to educate people about
what's going on," said Lauve's attorney, Rob Corry.

At Tuesday's talk, Lauve will share his story about how he was
injured, how he self-medicated, how he ended up in Boulder County
Jail and why he's now headed to trial on felony charges.

Lauve, Corry and a patient advocate with the Rocky Mountain
Caregivers Cooperative hope to educate Colorado patients about the
law and their rights to legally grow and possess marijuana. Patients
with "debilitating medical conditions" can use cannabis as a
medicine, if a physician recommends it, according to Corry.

But authorities sometimes deny that right, he said, like in Lauve's
case. Corry said his client presented police with a valid medical
marijuana card when investigators searched his home and seized his medicine.

"He did nothing wrong," Corry said. "I'm baffled as to why the
District Attorney's Office feels it needs to spend court days and
Boulder County residents' time to sit for three days and assess
whether this person is guilty of a felony and deserves to spend time
in prison."

District Attorney Stan Garnett said he can't comment about Lauve's
case because it's heading to trial, but he said his office is
committed to treating Lauve fairly.

"We only prosecute cases where we have sufficient evidence and can
prove a violation of the law," Garnett said. "We don't prosecute
cases to make examples of people. In fact, it's important to me and
everyone in my office that we treat each case individually and each
defendant fairly."

Garnett said he has a "fair amount of sympathy" for medical-marijuana patients.

"But my job is to enforce the law is it is currently written," he said.

Boulder County sheriff's Sgt. Barry Hartkopp, who works on the
county's drug task force, said medical marijuana patients can legally
possess six marijuana plants and two ounces of product. A doctor can
give permission to have more, he said, but evidence found at Lauve's
home led investigators to believe that "he was outside the limit of the law."

Lauve said he was just following his doctor's orders on how to treat
himself for the extreme pain he's suffered since a snowboarder
crashed into him at Eldora five years ago. Lauve -- who was in his
10th year volunteering for the Eldora Special Recreation program when
he was injured -- said he wanted to find a way to wean himself off
morphine and other opiates, and ingesting marijuana through food
helped him do that.

Lauve said he got into trouble after trying to grow his own plants
without much knowledge of how to do so. He had dozens of unusable
plants, and decided to collect them in trash sacks in his garage. He
didn't want to put them by the curb for fear that teenagers or
criminals would find them.

"I had no idea what to do with them," he said.

Even if he had been using all the plants officers found in his
garage, patient advocate Timothy Tipton said, Lauve had a doctor's
permission to possess larger amounts of marijuana because he ingests
the drug -- which requires more plants than smoking.

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IF YOU GO

Jason Lauve will give a talk, titled "Medical Marijuana: How Patients
and Caregivers Can Protect Themselves," at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the
University of Colorado's University Memorial Center, Room 247. For
more information, visit
www.colorado420.com/news/freetalk.patients.protect1.html

Lauve's trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 3 in Boulder County District
Court at the Boulder County Justice Center on Sixth Street and Canyon Boulevard.