Terminally ill Montana man busted for medical marijuana

DILLON, MT – The large-scale marijuana bust that law officers here touted as a major success this month was instead the persecution of a terminally ill man who needed the drug to help ease his suffering, a pro-medical marijuana group said Friday.

Patients and Families United, based in Helena, blasted the bust and said it would not stand up in court thanks to Montana’s Medical Marijuana Law passed three years ago. And they criticized law officers for making a terminally ill man’s last days miserable because of the worry that he would end up in prison.

“It amounts to persecution of somebody who’s already so overburdened with a medical condition that no one should have,” said Tom Daubert, founder and director of PFU. “That’s the purpose of our law, to have some relief for somebody who wants to be left alone.”

Daubert said his group will step up to help with the legal defense for the man, whose name has not been released by officials.

Law officers from Beaverhead County and the Southwest Montana Drug Task Force last week were trumpeting the seizure of 96 marijuana plants from a mobile home north of Dillon. They said the sophisticated growing operation was meant to keep a steady supply of marijuana coming, with plants at all stages of development.

Daubert said if taken into custody, Beaverhead County taxpayers will be on the hook for medical care that costs a staggering $136,000 a month for injections to keep the man alive.“Beaverhead County can have some fun with this: pay to keep a guy alive for a trial that probably won’t happen quickly,” he said.

Daubert promised a “vigorous” legal defense of the man. He said although the quantity of marijuana seized far exceeds the limits allowed under state law, they will use an affirmative defense to prove that he needed the quantity for his medical needs.The man is not a registered medical marijuana user, Daubert said. But his medical records will provide more than enough evidence that he has a qualifying condition and needs the drug to help ease his suffering in the final months of life.

You’d think it would be obvious to law enforcement the difference between an entrepreneur trying to grow marijuana for sale on the black market vs. a terminally ill patient growing his own medicine to alleviate suffering.  But unfortunately, the dichotomy of legal-for-the-sick / criminal-for-the-healthy forces lawmakers to create possession limits in order to help law enforcement determine who’s medical vs. who’s not.  Too often we find patients with severe need for whom six plants (Montana’s limit) to 24 plants (Oregon’s limit) is not enough to guarantee a steady supply of medicine.  Only when marijuana is re-legalized for all — sick and healthy — will patients finally get the unimpeded access to medicine they deserve.