MEDICAL MARIJUANA USER FREE AFTER PLEA DEAL

Michael Lapihuska, a man arrested in Anniston for having a legal
prescription of marijuana he brought from his home in California,
signed a plea agreement Monday for two years unsupervised probation,
which will allow him to finally return home.

"I really don't even feel like it's over yet," Lapihuska said Monday
from where he has been staying in Talladega County. "I don't - maybe
after I get back to California."

Lapihuska, a former Anniston resident, was arrested in December 2009
on possession of marijuana charges, after being detained by a police
officer for allegedly hitchhiking on McClellan Boulevard near Walmart.
Since then, he has been in Alabama waiting for his case to go to trial.

With no access to his medication, Lapihuska, who has been diagnosed
with post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and
major depression, says he is now suffering a relapse of the symptoms
he had been able to control with his medical marijuana prescription.
But, while he is eager to go back to California where he can get his
prescription in a safe environment, he feels like he compromised by
accepting the deal.

"I feel like I should have fought even more," he said. "The reason why
I took the deal is because they said it was the best deal that I was
going to get. I do agree that I broke the law, like I said before. But
this law is so wrong to me."

Loretta Nall, executive director of Alabamians for Compassionate Care
and an outspoken proponent of relaxing marijuana restrictions, sees
the agreement as a victory. Lapihuska had served time in jail for drug
charges in Alabama before he moved to California, and he could have
been sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison, she said.

"I'm ecstatic," Nall said. "I do see it as a victory for our political
advocacy around Michael. ... A complete victory would have been, they
would have thrown the case out, but this is as close to that as we're
going to get."

Lapihuska, however, said he believes if he had gotten in front of a
jury, he could have convinced people that the law is unjust and maybe
helped people in the state who could benefit from legal marijuana.
Still, he's eager to get back home to California after a year of waiting.

"I compromised and they compromised, and I guess that's fine," he
said.