The police raid occurred on February 1st, 2008 at the home of a terminally ill Dillion, MT man and his girlfriend. The gentleman lives with a disease which usually overtakes its victims by the age of 12. For this, he has become a registered medical marijuana patient in the state of Montana.

According to the Dillonite Daily article:

“The indoor marijuana grow utilized a very sophisticated venting system that was intended to keep the project hidden from the outside.”

The police seized 96 plants after what they call a three-month “investigation.” The terminally ill and suffering patient and his girlfriend are now facing 2 years to life and a fine of, up to, $50,000 for the offense.

The Montana Standard reported that Blair Martenson, an agent in charge with the Southwest Montana Drug Task Force in Butte, had this to say about the home:

“This was a marijuana growing operation that was pretty well sophisticated with the way it was set up.”

Of course, obtaining the medicine in question will probably not be easy for the patient during the investigation. To top things off, according to investigators, the processing is taking unusually long. This is due to the “huge amount of evidence in this case.” Martenson added that the delay was due delay in charges is common as agents must send the marijuana to a crime lab to confirm that it’s an illegal drug.

I would have hoped that somewhere during the three-month investigation they would have enough conclusive evidence to determine that it is marijuana.

This private garden served as the source of medicinal marijuana for registeredpatients in the area. Bob Meharg, chairman of Patients and Families United, said in a news release:

“Taxpayers have just footed the bill for an untold number of wasted dollars in this sad incident near Dillon 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.”

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.

This is not the first medical marijuana tragedy within recent months that have occurred at the hands of Montana law enforcement or federal law enforcement in Montana.

Unfortunately, this has not been picked up by major news sources in the state or the country. In fact, the title for the Montana Standard article read as:

“Felony charges pending in large pot growing operation near Dillon“

The ignorance of people surrounding medical marijuana was further reflected in the comments left on the page:

ulvejaeger wrote on Feb 14, 2008 9:04 PM:
” Isn’t it quaint how Beaverhead Co. & surrounding area’s despise the Fed’s until they want to get rid of a bunch o bad asses? Congratulations SWMDTF! Job well done! Hope Mr. McCann puts the hurt on em. ”

CalRipken wrote on Feb 14, 2008 3:18 PM:
” Good Job Martenson. You should get a raise. Keep plugging away. Another one bites the dust. Chalk up another one for the good guys. You should take him Federal and lock him up for 15 years. 96 plants should meet the Fed standards. Tell the other guys who worked the case Good Job, too. And do a high five for me, Yes! “

I was under the assumption that our country was supposed to be helping those most in need. Even though this individual took the time to obtain his medicine through legal avenues that were accepted and voted upon by a government within the United States of America, prohibition still reigns supreme.

For more information, please check out the following links:

• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
• Voluntary Committee of Lawyers
• National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
• Patients and Families United
• Medical Marijuana Policy Project of Montana

Maybe, one day, we’ll live in a world where our children won’t ask why the bad man is going to jail, but why the bad men are taking the nice man away.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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