Growers With WeHo-Destined Pot Acquitted
A Mendocino jury acquitted a pair of Redwood Valley medical marijuana growers who were arrested in Sonoma County on their way to deliver their medicine to West Hollywood’s Center for Compassionate Healing.
Jurors hung in a 7-5 deadlock in favor of acquittal; because four of five of the panelists voting for conviction, informed the district attorney they did not support retrial, the DA asked for and received a dismissal from the judge.
Sonoma County sheriffs stopped defendants Luke Strauss and Joe Maligno as they drove south on 101 near Cloverdale to deliver five pounds of doctor-approved cannabis to the WeHo location.
The DEA and Sheriff raided the pair’s home to find 300-400 pounds of packaged medical marijuana, a full indoor garden and recently-emptied outdoor greenhouse.
An investigation revealed over $1.4 million in payments from the Center for Compassionate Healing.
The prosecution relied a “this is just too much marijuana” defense; the defense asserted that the amount of medicine found was neither illegal or more than the usual for a medicine supplier in California.
Two expert witnesses, Andrew Kramer, President of the West Hollywood Center for Compassionate Healing and Jeff Jones, founder of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Co-op and the person who administers the Alameda County patient verification database for the Department of Health testified that the amounts of medicine and money being exchanged satisfies the needs of the collectives in urban areas, where large quantities of marijuana are difficult to grow.
An expert witness appeared who provided the jury a baseline average dose from which demand could be conjectured.
Dr. William Courtney testified that a reasonable dosage schedule can range from between four and twenty grams per day, based on published government studies, saying that seven joints per day makes an average dosage schedule at 1.5 grams per joint.
That would total as much as 3/8 – 1/4 ounce per day.
Defense attorney Edie Lerman said, after the verdict, “This shows that juries will be fair if they hear all the evidence and understand the law, regardless of the quantity involved.
He also said that, in his view, the case shows that “no credible medical marijuana case should be dealt away with a plea agreement, unless perhaps it is for deferred judgment, where the record is erased in six months,” saying his firm has gotten calls from other attorneys asking for advice on going to trial instead of pleading out.
This is a great example of how sometimes justice prevails. 300-400lbs of Marijuana is a very large amount. Even the prosecutor simply thought they could convict on quantity alone. They were wrong, and these medicinal providers are finally free.
Everyone likes a happy ending.
If the federal government would move Marijuana from a schedule 1 catagory to a schedule 2 or 3 then I would get my Government Marijuana from the Pharmacy for next to nothing. Most of these compassion centers are for profit business that take advantage of the patient. You are cash poor if you cant find someone to grow with. Obama wants to fight drugs. Simply more of the same.
Don’t give the bald heads a thing!