WINDSOR MAN SET ON FAITH HEALING WITH MARIJUANA

WINDSOR, Colo. (AP) - Lazarus Pino's interest in opening a medical
marijuana dispensary dates back decades, when his great-grandmother
became one of the best-known curanderas in New Mexico.

Curanderismo is Spanish for a faith-based healing practice founded on
a knowledge of plants. A curandera is a female healer. Curanderismo
has been practiced since the 16th century.

In a 1997 interview with "Herbs for Health" magazine, the then
91-year-old Gabrielita Pino described the 23 different herbs she used
to heal everything from open wounds and sores on the skin to
infections and other more serious ailments.

Gabrielita said she began as a folk chiropractor and learned enough
about herbs to become a herbalist. She eventually became a licensed
midwife. She believed in her medicine and enjoyed helping people so
much that she rarely charged more than $5 to treat someone, and many
times she waived the charges for those with no money.

"She was well sought-out," said Lazarus Pino, who has been operating a
medical marijuana dispensary in Windsor despite orders from the town
to shut it down. "People came from miles because they heard of her
great healing and natural curing methods. Through time, this branched
out to the rest of her family, including my father. My father knew her
well, but I was only blessed enough to meet her twice."

But Pino does know how he was raised. Baking soda on the ends of
potatoes and rubbed on the forehead to cure a headache was only one of
the many healing techniques his father practiced on Pino when he was a
young boy.

"My arm used to go out of place all the time," Pino said. "My father
would use his own energy in his hands to put it back. But the person
has to want it. We all knew he could do it, but you have to want to
receive what he wants to give."

Pino talks of poultice, a natural herb blended with oil or beeswax
that curanderismos rub into an area to treat pain.

"Marijuana is just another herb," Pino said. "When I grew up it was on
the shelf for the elders to use as a sacrament."

Standing up to Windsor's medical marijuana moratorium by keeping his
Medi-Grow dispensary open has nothing to do with a desire to
intentionally break the law, Pino said.

Instead, he said, it's all about principle and doing what is right for
his family and his clients.

"The only dispensary that was in compliance was In Harmony," Pino said
about the three Windsor dispensaries that he said were open the night
a moratorium against more dispensaries was passed by the Town Board in
December. "If they would have said, 'Both you dudes have to shut
down,' I would have said fine. But that isn't what they did, and
(Greg) Hatton didn't even have a building permit. They let Hatton stay
open and closed me down ."

Pino has been cited daily since Dec. 18 by the town for violating an
ordinance against operating a medical marijuana dispensary under the
moratorium. Each citation carries up to a $300 fine. As of Thursday,
Pino had received 45 citations - a total of $13,500 in possible fines.
That doesn't include the other citations he's received daily since
Jan. 5 for building code violations. They, too, carry up to a $300
per-day fine. Although Town Attorney Ian McCargar said the building
code citations were supposed to stop while Pino goes through an
appeals process with the planning department, the citation Pino
received Thursday still listed both violations.

Pino's comparison to A New Dawn Wellness comes from the state of the
two dispensaries on Dec. 16 when the town passed the moratorium. At
that meeting, director of planning Joe Plummer handed out a list of
eight medical marijuana businesses that were either open or in the
process of opening. Their status for completing all the necessary
steps was included.

A New Dawn was listed as "open, but not in compliance." The business
was operating; it had leased space; it had not yet paid any sales
taxes, but it had a sales tax license; it had planning and zoning
approval, but it did not have a building permit to put in a required
air filtration system or planning inspection approval.

Medi-Grow, according to the planning department, was not operating but
had leased space and had a sales tax license. It also had planning and
zoning approval and a building permit pending to install the same air
filtration system. Likewise, it did not have planning inspection
approval yet.

"They gave him until (January) 15th but shut us down," Pino said.
"That's not fair."

Last Thursday, Pino had his first day in court to fight the citations,
but Windsor Municipal Court Judge Michael Manning shot down two of his
four arguments.

Pino asked the Windsor Municipal Court to dismiss all the citations on
grounds the moratorium is unconstitutional. Pino's attorney, Daniel
Taylor of Wheat Ridge, based his motion on what he believed were at
least four violations of local, state and federal laws - equal
protection, retroactive law making, failure to provide proper notice
of a public meeting and enacting an emergency ordinance where no
emergency existed. Manning ruled in favor of the town on the public
meeting notice and the emergency ordinance adoption.

"It was not unconstitutional," Manning said. "In fact, the defendant
appeared and had the opportunity to testify and the court is not going
to second-guess the Town Board on the emergency ordinance unless there
is no finding of sufficient evidence that an emergency existed."

As far as the equal protection and retroactive law arguments were
concerned, Manning delayed a decision because he needed to review
audio and videotapes of two Town Board meetings where the moratorium
was discussed.

"The town is arguing New Dawn was in a different situation because he
was able to open although he had building permit issues," Taylor said.
"But New Dawn had no permit. My client had all the paperwork submitted
and was waiting for the permit to be pulled."

Taylor also argued the moratorium is unconstitutional because it
created a law requiring compliance in five days before it became effective.

"You can't create a law today based off of something that happened
yesterday," Taylor said after the hearing.