MAN DENIES HIS POT GROWING IS ILLEGAL

Railroad Square Resident Says Confiscated Plants Were Permitted for Medical Use

Evan Neumann swears he does not have a green thumb and that the
marijuana he's been growing since March inside his home near Railroad
Square is no big deal.

He says it tastes so bad that for flavoring he puts lemon peel slices
in the plastic bags used to store the marijuana buds he smokes to
treat his bipolar condition.

Whatever the quality, Santa Rosa narcotics detectives and agents with
the federal Drug Enforcement Administration targeted his home Friday.
They busted open his front door, ordered him and his roommate to the
ground and then broke up Neumann's marijuana-growing operation.

Neumann, 35, was arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for
sale and cultivation of marijuana.

Neumann, who received his license to use medical marijuana in
February, said he was learning how to grow marijuana with an eye on
perhaps selling to local cannabis clubs.

It is the latest venture for Neumann, the son of Claus Neumann, former
longtime owner of Los Robles Lodge. The younger Neumann used to manage
Hotel La Rose and is a former president of the Historic Railroad
Square Association.

Depression set in after he broke up with his fiancee a few years ago,
he said, and he has been taking prescription medicine ever since. Some
of the medications cause severe headaches and migraines and marijuana
helps him deal with the pain, he said.

"I never thought I would be targeted by law enforcement," he said. "To
be honest, my biggest fear was a home invasion."

According to a police statement, officers served a search warrant on
Neumann's home Friday and found 179 marijuana plants and 1 pound of
processed marijuana packaged for sale. The statement said they also
found 6 pounds of processed marijuana being dried, as well as
cultivation equipment, digital scales and packaging material.

Police said the 7 pounds of marijuana had a potential street value of
$28,000, and the plants had the potential to produce marijuana with a
street value of $358,000.

Police were not available Saturday for further comment on the
raid.

Neumann scoffs at the projections. He admitted that he probably was
growing more plants than he was allowed by his medical marijuana
license. But he swears he is not a criminal.

"That's a joke. It's just absolutely a joke," he said. "The marijuana
that I had that was processed was about 10 to 14 ounces."

He said that about 90 of the plants were tiny "clones" he was
nurturing in plastic Dixie Cups on his roof and that he was likely to
kill half of them.

"I've killed every single plant that I've grown," he said. "I'm just
not very good. There's a lot of steps you have to go through before
you can sell to a club. The first step obviously is growing something
the clubs will buy."

Neumann's roommate, Jenn Kernan, a friend who recently moved back to
Santa Rosa from New Orleans, said she couldn't believe what happened
Friday morning.

"I was about to open the door when they broke it down," she said. "The
entire hallway was filled by men with big guns, scary, big guns,
automatic weapons. I sank down to my knees. I was holding my dog in my
hands."

Neumann swears that he's never sold marijuana to anybody, and that he
was only looking at the possibility of becoming a cannabis club grower.

The whole ordeal has shaken him up. "I wouldn't want true criminals to
go through that," he said.