FLAG'S OWN MARIJUANA LAWYER

When Thomas Dean was in high school, he watched his friends get in
trouble for smoking marijuana and didn't see any reason for it. Some
were expelled from school, while others ended up in juvenile detention.

As he got older, Dean became passionate about reform, and in college
he got involved with the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws. Those experiences steered him toward a life spent
challenging the status quo on marijuana law.

"It's in marijuana prohibition that we find the front line in the
defense of the constitutional rights that we enjoy," Dean said.
"That's where the rubber meets the road."

Now a lawyer, Dean has been defending clients in marijuana cases in
Flagstaff for the last 14 years. He represents clients charged with
everything from minor possession to transporting hundreds of pounds
of marijuana on I-40. And since Proposition 203 was passed by voters
in November, he's also advising and representing clients involved
with medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the state.

California Card Honored

Recently, he defended a client who had been driving through Mohave
County with marijuana in his car. A police officer had pulled over
his client, a competition snowboarder from California, and smelled
the lingering odor of fresh marijuana. When the officer asked him if
he had marijuana with him, the man produced a small bag of it along
with his medical marijuana prescription card issued in California.
The officer cited the man for possession of marijuana and then let him go.

Dean petitioned for the case to be dismissed based on a provision
within Proposition 203 that allows out-of-state medical marijuana
cards to be used in Arizona if they were issued for one of the
serious ailments that the state recognizes.

The case represents the first such dismissal in the state under the new law.

But last week wasn't the first time Dean had played an up-front role
in the battle for medicinal marijuana. In 1998, he became the legal
director for NORML and moved to Washington, D.C., to work with the
group that helped bring him into the politics of pot in the first place.

The district had just passed a law legalizing marijuana for medicinal
uses, but Congress quickly asserted its powers over the district to
strike it down. NORML worked with ACT-UP, a group that had organized
efforts to put the initiative on the D.C. ballot, and notified city
leaders that they intended to open medical marijuana dispensaries in
defiance of Congress. According to Dean, the city council, mayor and
police chief all agreed that they would stick by the votes of D.C.
residents and not make any arrests.

Understanding that what they were doing was still illegal, they
organized the network so that the people growing, distributing and
prescribing the drug would have as little criminal exposure as
possible. They were upfront about what they were doing, but discreet
about the actual distribution channels.

As a result, an underground network of dispensaries was set up that
continued to operate until D.C. managed to enact an official law
several years later.

Backs Full Legalization

But not only is Dean an ardent supporter of the medicinal uses of
marijuana, he believes it should be legal to use recreationally as well.

"There's no way you can figure out why this stuff is illegal," Dean
said. "It doesn't make much sense to me when we tell people that they
can go home and have a martini, but they can't smoke a bowl of marijuana."

Dean says marijuana is a prime target in the war on drugs simply
because it's used much more commonly than other substances. And he
thinks marijuana is also just an easy thing to get busted for because
of its distinctive smell and how long it can be detected in the body.

"My concern has always been primarily individual rights and I've
always been interested in the dichotomy between the government and
the individual," Dean said. "The war on drugs has had a damning role
on individual rights."

A Federalist Crisis

He likes to frame the state of marijuana law as a federalist crisis,
where 15 states and the District of Columbia have taken steps toward
legalizing marijuana in some role and yet it's still considered
illegal by the U.S. government. If the president is elected to a
second term, he hopes Obama will consider reclassifying marijuana
from its current status as a class one substance, or one the Drug
Enforcement Administration considers to have a high potential for
abuse and no medical value. That reclassification would not require
congressional approval.

"It would be nice if we humans didn't feel the need to want to
consume psychoactive chemicals and plants," Dean said, "but that's
not the reality."

He rejects the common stereotype that many people have of marijuana
smokers as lazy and unintelligent. According to Dean, marijuana might
reduce activity in the brain while a person's high, but that activity
returns to normal once the effect wears off. He says marijuana poses
no major threat to health and says any societal dangers shouldn't be
the government's concern, adding that he's considering getting a
medical marijuana card himself.

"The worst thing about smoking marijuana is getting caught," he said.

Happy to Contribute

As Arizona has worked to shape its medical marijuana program, Dean
has been playing a role by working with patients interested in
getting cards and caregivers looking to provide marijuana. He's
representing dispensaries in Flagstaff, Prescott and Tempe.

But even as his role in the medical marijuana community continues, he
said he's just happy to contribute.

"Some people looked at this as a money-maker," Dean said. "I just
wanted to be sure I was involved in helping these dispensaries."