POT CASE VERDICT IS GUILTY

Legalization Advocate Faces Five-Year Jail Term

SKOWHEGAN -- Marijuana legalization activist Donald Christen faces up
to five years in jail after he was found guilty of aggravated
cultivation of marijuana.

A Somerset County Superior Court jury found Christen guilty of
cultivating marijuana on Friday, but not guilty of the more serious
crime of aggravated drug trafficking.

That verdict capped a week-long trial in which Christen, an advocate
of legalizing marijuana, claimed the cannabis that police seized in a
November 2004 raid on his Madison home was destined for patients.

Maine is one of 12 states that have medical marijuana laws, although
many consider the law unworkable because it does not provide a legal
means of acquiring seeds or marijuana itself. A measure now before
the Legislature, LD 1418, would create a registry of nonprofit
corporations that could provide the drug to qualified users.

Christen, 53, said he did the best he could to comply with the
medical marijuana law and will try again during sentencing to
convince Justice S. Kirk Studstrup that he met the law's
requirements. If he is not successful, he said, he plans to appeal.

Prosecutors, however, say that Christen, who was previously convicted
of furnishing and trafficking in marijuana, was essentially thumbing
his nose at the law.

"We have always fully complied with both the letter and the spirit of
the medical marijuana law," District Attorney Evert N. Fowle said
Monday. "This is Donny pushing the limits and acting in a way that is
contemptuous of our law."

Christen is founder of the Maine Vocals, a now-defunct organization
that advocated for legalizing marijuana.

He also organizes a series of rock concerts in Starks with a
marijuana theme, including Hempstock and Harvest Fest.

In addition to other patients, Christen said he was growing for his
wife, Pamela Christen, who was then undergoing chemotherapy as part
of her treatment for cancer. He admitted, however, that he would have
used some of the marijuana himself.

Christen said he considers himself a patient because he has a bad
back, although he acknowledged he does not qualify as a medical
marijuana patient under Maine's law.

People who qualify under the law include cancer patients, and people
who suffer from AIDS, glaucoma, and certain other conditions.

Patients or their caregivers may grow up to six marijuana plants,
although only three of those plants can be mature or flowering.

Christen, however, had 13 plants at the time of his arrest, according
to police and prosecutors.

Police say he also had more than a pound of harvested marijuana,
although Christen said that much of that amount was not usable.

The case underscored apparent conflicts within Maine's medical marijuana law.

Not only does the law not offer a legal means to buy marijuana or
marijuana seeds, it only allows possession of 21/2 ounces. Christen
said that one plant alone may provide a user with between 4 ounces
and a pound of usable marijuana. That means that by harvesting one
plant, a grower could be violating the law, he said.

Christen said that when he didn't have his home-grown marijuana to
give to patients, he bought marijuana and resold it to them, getting
them a better price by pooling their money.

Fowle acknowledged that the current law is poorly drafted and
confusing, but said Christen should make changes through the
Legislature, not "thumb his nose at the law."

He said his office would ask for an "appropriate" sentence.