Dillon-Area Marijuana “Bust” Condemned
as Law Enforcement “Persecution”
A
Seriously Ill Medical Marijuana Patient Now Lives
in Agony, & Fearing Threat of Prison for His
Last Days of Life
Taxpayer
Liability for the Patient’s Healthcare Alone
Would Exceed $136,000 per Month
News
Links:
Felony charges pending in large MJ
grow operation near Dillon
Dillon, MT MJ grow operation
"busted"
Patients
and Families United responds:
The so-called “large pot-growing
operation” that government agents raided
north of Dillon recently was in fact a private,
personal medicine-growing facility for a
desperately ill medical marijuana patient –
and both the government confiscation of the
medicine and the subsequent media coverage
illustrate the persistent ignorance that enables
the continued, unfair persecution of suffering
patients, says Patients & Families United.
Patients & Families
United
is a support group for Montana’s medical
marijuana patients, regardless of their medical
condition, and pain patients, whether they use
medical marijuana or not. A wealth of
scientific research over the last 30+ years has
documented the value of medical marijuana in
treating a wide variety of conditions, including
severe chronic pain.
In 2004, Montana voters – by the widest
margin in U.S. history – approved making
medical marijuana legal for patients suffering
certain medical conditions. Dillon’s
Beaverhead County was one of the many counties
where a majority of voters passed the
measure. The law specifies that qualifying
patients may grow and possess enough marijuana to
meet their legitimate medical needs.
Currently, nearly 600 Montanans in 34 counties are
registered medical marijuana patients based on
recommendations from 145 physicians across the
state.
“It’s time for local, state and federal
law enforcement officials to recognize and honor
Montana’s three-plus-year-old medical
marijuana law, rather than to ignore it as they did
so unconscionably in this case,” said Bob
Meharg, chairman of the board of directors of
Patients & Families United. A veteran and
retired trauma nurse, Meharg is himself a
registered medical marijuana patient.
“Taxpayers have just footed the bill for an
untold number of wasted dollars in this sad
incident near Dillon,” Meharg reported,
“and if the government charges and manages to
convict the patient involved, we’ll be paying
more than $136,000 every month for the
patient’s medical care alone. I am
shocked to see that the government is claiming that
it investigated this case for three months, yet
when the government acted against this poor patient
it was in such complete ignorance both of our
state’s medical marijuana law and of the
basic facts of this situation.”
Meharg declined to give details about the
patient’s medical condition, citing the
patient’s right to privacy, but noted that
the condition is a rare and terminal, degenerative
one.
“Suffice it to say that the medical marijuana
patient involved in this situation suffers from a
truly tragic medical condition that he was born
with, a condition that usually causes death during
childhood. He is fortunate to have lived into
adulthood, but he would die without injections that
cost more than $136,000 per month, and medical
marijuana plays a critical pain-treatment role in
his doctor-approved healthcare regimen,” he
said.
He emphasized that the grow-operation involved in
this case existed for and served only medical
marijuana patients who qualify under
Montana’s compassionate law.
Meharg cautioned the law enforcement agencies and
the government jurisdictions involved, which would
include Beaverhead County and all its taxpayers,
that in a similar case in Colorado, courts recently
have found law enforcement officials directly
responsible for the welfare and condition of the
medical marijuana plants they seized.
“They confiscated legal medicine that merely
enables this patient to endure his condition.
This raises serious legal risks to law enforcement
and the taxpayers who fund them. Courts in
other states where medical marijuana is legal have
ruled that law enforcement must return the medicine
to the patient or compensate the patient by paying
for its full value,” Meharg reported.
“This is why it’s so important for law
enforcement officials to make sure they understand
our compassionate medical marijuana law and to make
sure they don’t disrupt a legitimate
patient’s life,” he insisted.
“Ultimately, taxpayers get stuck with all the
costs, none of which should have been incurred in
the first place. Meanwhile, a human being who
deserves our support and understanding, instead
lives needlessly in physical agony and emotionally
traumatized by fear.”
Meharg asked: “Would even a single one of the
law enforcement agents who participated in this
raid volunteer to trade places with this
patient? Would anyone volunteer to face his
medical condition – with or without the
doctor-recommended medical marijuana that gives him
relief from his pain? I doubt
it.”