HIGHLANDS RANCH MAN ACCUSED OF GROWING POT SAYS DEA IS MAKING AN EXAMPLE OF HIM

The medical-marijuana grower arrested by Drug Enforcement
Administration agents after showing his operation to 9News says he
believes the DEA is hoping to make an example out of him. "I'm the
poster boy now," Chris Bartkowicz said Saturday in his first
interview from jail.

DEA agents seized 16 boxes full of marijuana from his Highlands Ranch
house near C-470 and University Boulevard on Friday afternoon. It was
the same day a news story on his growing operation was set to air on 9News.

"We work hard and aren't just people who want to smoke pot all the
time," Bartkowicz said. "My intent was to show that growers care for
houses. We construct well-made rooms for good growing environments. I
figured I was in the right. I didn't figure I had anything to hide.
If I am legal, why should I be in the shadows?"

Bartkowicz asked 9News not to give his address in the story. The
night before the story was to run, a neighbor called to report she
suspected someone was growing marijuana in the house where Bartkowicz
lived, according to a federal official.

"If I knew what I was doing was illegal, I would have never made a
public display of myself," he said. "I would not have put myself in
the line of fire if I was knowingly violating the law."

The U.S. attorney's office will review the evidence collected and
could decide Tuesday whether charges will be filed against
Bartkowicz. He is also expected to make his first appearance in
federal court on Tuesday.

"According to him and according to what he's seen on the news, he
probably believes he is legal," said Jeff Sweetin, special agent in
charge of Denver's DEA office.

Sweetin said even though state law allows for medical marijuana,
federal law does not.

"We will continue to enforce federal law. That's what we are paid to
do," Sweetin said.

He said federal guidelines give him discretion, and his focus is on
large operations such as the one he believes Bartkowicz ran.
"Discretion is: I can't send my DEA agents out on 10-plant grows. . .
. We work criminal organizations that are enterprises generating
funds by distributing illegal substances."

Bartkowicz said he did not know the number of marijuana plants seized
by DEA agents, but video shot by 9News shows dozens of plants in his
basement. He also showed 9News his medical-marijuana license and
documentation for the people to whom he provides marijuana.

Sweetin left open the door to go after medical-marijuana dispensaries.

"The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what
their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody.
They're violating federal law; they're at risk of arrest and
imprisonment," he said to 9News' partners at The Denver Post in a
separate interview. "Technically, every dispensary in the state is in
blatant violation of federal law."

An October memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden said
federal agents should not target people in "clear and unambiguous
compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of
marijuana," The Post reported. The memo led many in Colorado's
medical-marijuana community to believe federal agents would no longer
raid medical-marijuana dispensaries or growers.

Sweetin say the memo does nothing to change federal law, which makes
marijuana illegal, and instead mostly addresses treatment of
medical-marijuana patients and small-scale growers.