UP IN SMOKE

Federal Government Clashes With County Over Small Medical Marijuana
Garden

SMOKED OUT: Diane Monson, who holds a doctor's recommendation to use
marijuana for back spasms, read the text of Prop. 215 to federal drug
agents as they hacked her six marijuana plants from the ground last week.

Don't tread on me: Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced legislation
last year that would repeal federal laws that restrict the states' rights
to allow medical marijuana use. The legislation would also reclassify
marijuana from a Schedule 1 narcotic to a Schedule II drug, a change that
would recognize that there are valid medical uses for marijuana. The bill
is still being discussed. When the federal drug agents asked Diane Monson
where her marijuana plants were last week, she didn't hesitate to tell them.

Why should she? She had a doctor's recommendation to smoke pot (to relieve
chronic back spasms), and, with just six marijuana plants growing in her
yard, was well within Butte County's guidelines for medicinal possession.
Monson never had a problem before. She's a peaceful person and was making,
of all things, a batch of granola when the police arrived.

But she only thought she was safe.

As it turns out, the Butte County sheriff's deputies who searched her
Oroville foothills house last Thursday really didn't have a problem with
her small crop. But the federal drug agents who assisted them certainly
did. And that's where the problem came up.

"If the [feds] weren't there, we'd have left the plants," said Sheriff's
Lt. Jerry Smith. "We're not out to bother with small medicinal grows like
that."

Even so, and against the pleadings of Butte County District Attorney Mike
Ramsey, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents ripped Monson's plants
out of the ground. The sheriff's deputies, Monson said, gave her five
minutes to harvest what she could of the plants before the DEA agents took
them.

As the feds hacked the plants from the ground, Monson said she read them
the entire text of Prop. 215.

"I thought they might need to hear it," she said. "I couldn't believe they
were taking the plants. I mean, this is just so against what the will of
the people of the state of California is. I wasn't doing anything against
the law."

Monson is right--partially. She wasn't doing anything against state law,
but her small marijuana garden was completely illegal in the eyes of the
federal government. And increasingly, if you get busted on marijuana
charges--whether medical cultivation or medical possession--depends on who
does the bust.

If it's the county, at least in Butte County and you're growing fewer than
six plants, you're most likely in the clear. But if it's the feds, you're
in trouble.

In a way, Monson is lucky. Because she had only six plants, she probably
won't face any federal charges. So why seize the plants in the first place,
especially since she's a medicinal user? That's the question DA Ramsey
asked of U.S. Attorney John K. Vincent, who authorized the seizure.

"I was using words like 'wrong headed' and 'stupid' and 'high handed,' when
I was talking to [Vincent] about it," Ramsey said. "I was very angry about
it, when [Monson] was squarely within 215."

Ramsey was notified of the bust while the sheriff's deputies and DEA agents
were already at Monson's house. They were there because Monson and her
husband were the original owners of and held the note on a Berry Creek
house where sheriff's deputies found a large, sophisticated marijuana grow
this spring. The buyers of the home made their payments on time every
month, Monson said, and they never suspected that anything illegal was
going on in the house.

Because of the size of the Berry Creek grow, the federal government is
prosecuting the case (there've been two arrests), and that's why the DEA
agents accompanied the sheriff's deputies to Monson's house for a search.

When he was notified of the search, Ramsey acknowledges that he pleaded
with the feds to leave the plants alone. Monson wasn't breaking state law,
he said, so why bother?

"I was told that [the federal government's] policy is to not recognize any
medical excuse for marijuana," Ramsey said. "... I was very angry that they
were going to [take the plants] and questioned the necessity of it. I told
him this was going to bring bad publicity, and [Vincent] said he'd take the
heat, but the plants needed to be taken and destroyed."

Vincent didn't return phone calls asking for comment.

California isn't the only state trying to make sense of dichotomous state
and federal marijuana laws.

Twelve states (California among them) have reduced penalties for possessing
a small amount of marijuana to mere fines, and this fall Nevadans will
decide at the polls if they want to legalize and tax marijuana. Clearly,
the states are becoming more lax about marijuana, but the federal
government seems determined to maintain its illegality.

The resulting confusion about jurisdiction has all but turned Prop. 215
into a Trojan horse. When county law enforcement officers are prevented
from arresting growers who use Prop. 215 as a defense, all they have to do
is call in the DEA.

The tension between state and federal law is almost sure to lead to a legal
showdown sometime in the future, but in Butte County it appears to have
begun already. Ramsey denied that there are more federal agents in Butte
County than ever but acknowledged that he's "having discussions" with them
about already-blurry jurisdictional boundaries.

"They'll probably be around less now," Ramsey said. "Because I'm pissed."