POT POLITICS

User-Activist Says Law Disregards Growth Cycle, Economics

MADISON -- The buds on Don Christen's three marijuana plants were
thick and bristling, ready for picking.

"These branches are so heavy, they're falling down," he said, lifting
one to show its weight. "I should be able to take all that's ready,
but it would be half a pound. What am I going to do? I have a big
problem here."

Christen, of Madison, has been a medical marijuana patient for nearly
two years, and he believes the medical marijuana bill currently
making its way through the Legislature is not workable.

Patients legally may have up to 2 1/2 half ounces of dried marijuana,
but the legal limit of six plants produces much more, he said. If he
harvests all the marijuana that his plants grow, he'll be breaking
the law, he said. If he doesn't use it, it will spoil -- what he
calls a waste of time, money and medicine.

Patients should be able to harvest marijuana when it's ready and then
dry and store it for future use, he said. "When you grow a plant, you
have to harvest it when it's ready, not when you're ready," he said.

However, Kennebec and Somerset counties' District Attorney Evert
Fowle said 2 1/2 ounces is "a lot of marijuana" and that upping the
quantity would bring the state closer to legalizing marijuana outright.

Calling it "one further step down the slippery slope as far as
legalization," he added that the quantity issue strays from what
voters approved in November's referendum. "That's completely separate
from what people voted on and what the legislators have been
struggling on," he said.

A marijuana seedling takes about five or six months to grow indoors
before it can start to be harvested, Christen said. Harvesting then
takes a few weeks, as small amounts are picked as they mature. One
plant can produce up to half a pound of dried marijuana, and once the
plant is completely harvested, it dies.

As the plants grow, there are large periods of time when no marijuana
is produced, he said. Then, when it is ready to be picked, it often
produces more than the legal limit. "The law says we can have six
plants. Let us grow them and harvest what we can get off them, and
let us store it and take it out and utilize what we need," he said.

When asked why he could not grow one plant at a time, Christen said
the idea was "just stupid" -- for economic and practical reasons.

To have one plant reach maturity at a time would require a different
light set-up for each plant, as different stages of growth require
different amounts of light, he said. With lights systems costing
around $800, and light bulbs around $100, it would not make economic
sense to grow each plant separately, he said, adding that it would
also require the lights to be on year-round. In the summer he
normally puts his plants outside.

Christen keeps his plants on a rotation: As three reach maturity,
another three are growing. This method protects against crop failure
and is the most cost-effective way, he said.

When asked why he doesn't dispose of the extra, he said it would
wasteful despite breaking the law. "You can't throw it away, and
nobody will throw it away," he said. Patients should be allowed to
possess up to 3 pounds per year, he said, based on six plants
producing half a pound each.

Christen, who is the founder of the marijuana advocacy group Maine
Vocals, smokes about 1 1/2 ounces of marijuana each week for muscle
spasms and pain, according to his notarized and doctor-signed certificate.

The Legislature's Health and Human Services committee has approved
L.D. 1811, a bill that makes changes to the state's 1999 medical
marijuana law. It sets the legal limit a patient can have at 2 1/2
ounces of marijuana.

Sen. Joe Brannigan, D-Portland, is chairman of the Health and Human
Services committee. He said there are components of the medical
marijuana law that will need to be adjusted by the overseeing agency,
the Department of Health and Human Services, after the bill is
approved and signed by the governor. An additional issue surrounding
the legal limit is that different ways of consuming marijuana require
different quantities. For the same effect, eating pot brownies
requires more marijuana than smoking it, he said.

"So some of that's all got to be worked out, and some of that will be
worked out in rule," Brannigan said. "Hopefully (the department) will
come out with something that is reasonable, and we're going to trust
that that happens."

Jonathan Leavitt, executive director of the Maine Marijuana Policy
Initiative, believes the legal limit should be increased. When the
1999 law was amended by a citizen-initiated referendum vote in
November, his organization supported the 2 1/2 -ounce limit but hoped
legislators would increase the legal quantity later, he said.

"We had to keep our numbers pretty small for folks to have a level of
comfortableness with the law itself, but we knew all along that it
was low; but we hoped the Legislature would address this," he said.
"The issue that Donny is going to have is the same that thousands of
caregivers across the state will have."

He said excess marijuana should be passed on to other caregivers or
unloaded onto dispensaries -- to prevent it from going to waste or
putting patients or caregivers in legal danger.

Somerset County Sheriff Barry DeLong said enforcing the medical
marijuana limit may prove difficult. He said he would be "hard
pressed" to arrest a terminal cancer patient who possesses slightly
more than 2 1/2 ounces.

"Sometimes we step over dollars to get pennies," he said, "and I'm
old-fashioned. I'm old-school. I'm not pro-marijuana, and I'm not
pro-drug use; but when it comes to the marijuana law, we have to have
common sense about how it's applied, and we have to have a test
period. ... We need to see how it works. There may be no issues.
There may be many issues. Let's see how it goes. I'm not going to
jump to any conclusions."