Pompo

Judge Finds Medical Marijuana Patient Guilty in Pot-Growing Case
9/19/08|Kitsap Sun| by Josh Farley



A Kitsap County Superior Court judge Friday found a card-carrying medical marijuana patient guilty of growing pot, saying that under the law, the Bremerton man was "not a qualifying patient."

Judge Anna M. Laurie ruled that Robert Dalton's use of marijuana for chronic lower back pain didn't meet the conditions of the citizen's initiative passed by voters in 1998, or any subsequent amendment to it by the Legislature.

His lawyers, Jeanette Dalton and Douglas Hiatt, had "failed to sustain his burden" on the point that his pain couldn't be "unrelieved by standard medical treatments and medications," such as opiate-based painkillers, she said, adding that marijuana for medicinal purposes should be a "drug of last resort."

West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team detectives served a search warrant on Dalton's property in August 2007. In court documents, they said they found 88 plants, which they said was well beyond the 60-day supply law for medical marijuana patients.

But Laurie's decision didn't even consider arguments over the currently contested definition of what a 60-day supply is. She called the issue "a moot point," in the case.

The Department of Health has been tasked by the Legislature with defining a "60-day" supply. The current recommendation for card-carrying patients is up to 24 ounces, with up to six mature plants and 18 immature plants.

Hiatt was "very disappointed" with Laurie's verdict, reiterating what he'd argued in court: that Laurie was "second guessing" physician Thomas Orvald, who recommended Robert Dalton use marijuana.

"If Judge Laurie wants to be a doctor, she should go to medical school," Hiatt said. "No patient in this state is safe if she's right."

However, Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Cami Lewis called the decision "the correct result." During closing arguments, deputy prosecutor Coreen Schnepf had argued that opiate medications were relieving his pain, and that he needed to have incurable pain by other medicines to use cannabis.

Hiatt had argued that those opiates made Dalton sick and weren't effective at quelling his pain.

Dalton faces zero to six months in jail for the felony conviction. His lawyers will ask the judge at an Oct. 17 hearing to suspend any sentence pending their appeal.

Jeanette Dalton, who is running for Kitsap County Superior Court in November, said that while she respected Laurie's decision, but feared the precedent it would set.

"If other judges apply this strictly constrained of definition, it will adversely affect patients across this state," she said.

With the conviction, Robert Dalton's medical marijuana card is nullified, he said following the verdict. He said he's not happy with the idea of going to opiates for pain control because of their addictive properties.

"I don't want to be a drug addict," he said. "That's why I chose medical marijuana."