The Baltimore, Maryland, suburbs has a 62-year-old resident named Robert C. Chance – but most people in the Charm City area know Robert by his nickname “Santa Bob”. Every year, “Santa Bob” lets his white beard grow out and he opens up his Harford county tree farm for families to come find their Christmas tree.
“Santa Bob” is a retired teacher who was elected to his school system’s Educator Hall of Fame and a former commissioner in the nearby town of Bel Air. He was well known throughout the community as a staunch ecologist, advocating recycling and running nature camps for children. He was so well known and respected that all the county judges had to recuse themselves from the case brought against “Santa Bob” when his tree farm was raided for another kind of trees.
Harford County detectives and investigators from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration raided Chance’s Environmental Evergreens Tree Farm in May and found 19 growing marijuana plants, more than a pound and a half of packaged marijuana in freezers, and about 33 grams of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
According to a statement by a Harford County deputy sheriff in federal court documents, that quantity of marijuana suggested an intent to distribute.
Chance told The Baltimore Sun in an e-mail he had used the marijuana to relieve pain that stemmed from chronic arthritis and a bout with prostate cancer.
“I have always been the independent, self-sufficient type,” he wrote, and “just didn’t want to deal with buying from anyone.”
The story doesn’t say what “Santa Bob’s” using the mushrooms for, but it seems clear that “Santa Bob’s” use of marijuana was for medical reasons. If “Santa Bob” were living here in the Rose City instead of Charm City, he might be a little over his possession limit, but police could only seize the amount over a pound and a half. For his plants, if only six were over a foot tall and budding, he’d be in compliance.
But unfortunately, “Santa Bob” lives in Maryland, so this respected community leader is nothing more than a no-good druggie.
He had been charged with five counts, including possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and had faced a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors and Chance’s attorney, Augustus Brown, later agreed that he would serve no more than six months in jail.
After his arrest, the federal government filed a civil complaint to seize Chance’s house and farm under a law that allows the taking of land used for illegal drug dealing. Chance was allowed to keep the property and to continue living there, his attorney said, after paying a $35,000 settlement in December.
“That amounts to nearly all his life savings,” Brown told the court.
Because of his exemplary background and because he completed a 26-week outpatient recovery program, “Santa Bob” received a two-year suspended sentence and was placed on 18 months of supervised probation.
Chance appeared chastened as he addressed the court.
“I have been broken,” he said. “My body of work has been stained. I’ve embarrassed my family and friends, and I’ve taken this deeply within my soul.” He vowed to “maintain abstinence and to work hard on my farm,” and he said he hoped to continue to be “a spokesman for the planet.”
No, “Santa Bob”, you have been vilified for trying to treat yourself medically with “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.“ The only stain is that left on the Constitution when masked agents violate your home and property over the plants you grow to treat your illness. The only embarassment should be felt by those of us who maintain this prohibition that “breaks” good citizens and good men like Robert C. Chance.
