Pubdate: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 Source: Olympian, The (WA) Copyright: 2002, The Olympian Contact: http://www.theolympian.com/forms/lettrfrm.shtml Website: http://www.theolympian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/319 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) OLYMPIA RESIDENT FACES MANUFACTURING, POSSESSION CHARGES MONTESANO (AP) -- A man busted last fall for a garage garden of 53 marijuana plants says he was using the illegal herb for medical reasons -- allowed under a vague initiative approved by state voters in 1998. Authorities are dubious. "He had enough marijuana to supply the city of Ocean Shores, and that's not an exaggeration," said Sgt. Dallas Hensley of the Grays Harbor Drug Task Force. One of the flaws state courts have found in Initiative 692 is that it recommends patients not have more than a 60-day supply, but does not say how much that is. Hensley said the medical-marijuana defense is coming up more often during drug busts. "I can't make decisions in the field if the Legislature and scores of attorneys can't come up with an answer," he said. "The law needs to be clarified." Defendant Bruce Buckner, 48, suffers from Crohn's disease, a chronic bowel inflammation that afflicts more than 500,000 Americans with symptoms that include severe and persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, fatigue and weight loss. Note From Doctor Buckner said he's managed the symptoms fairly well for 29 years -- since a doctor suggested smoking marijuana might provide some relief. And under Initiative 692, which allows doctors to "recommend" medicinal use of marijuana, he said he believed he was within the law. He got a recommendation last year -- written by a physician's assistant and signed by a doctor -- that said: "This letter is to confirm that I support Mr. Buckner's use of marijuana for treatment of Crohn's Disease not relieved by standard treatments." "For the first time in my life, I wasn't going to feel like a criminal," Buckner said. Grays Harbor Prosecutor Stew Menefee and Deputy Prosecutor William Leraas said he was wrong about that. Leraas has filed a motion asking the court not to allow the medical-marijuana defense. Buckner faces trial May 29 on charges of manufacturing marijuana and possessing one gram of illegal psilocybin mushrooms. In addition to the plants found at his former home in Ocean Shores, officers seized a pound of processed marijuana, two scales, packaging materials and $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills. Buckner said he weighed his own doses and the money was his life savings. He said he was smoking 8 to 10 grams of pot daily, about one marijuana cigarette per hour. He grew it in the garage of a rented two-bedroom bungalow in the beachfront community. "When you smoke it a lot, you don't get high anymore. And that's what's good, because it helps the symptoms of the disease and I can still function and work," said the self-employed Web and T-shirt designer. In addition, Buckner said, he supplied a friend in Sequim who also has a medical recommendation. Leraas said Buckner did not have proper authorization for that. Evicted after the bust, Buckner has moved to Olympia. He said his health is worsening without marijuana and his work has suffered. I-692 allows doctors to "recommend" marijuana for some ailments, but they cannot prescribe it and pharmacies cannot distribute it because it remains illegal under federal law. The state Court of Appeals earlier this month upheld a Stevens County medical-marijuana conviction -- a case involving 15 plants -- because there was no evidence indicating how much pot the defendant needed and thus no way to know what constituted a 60-day supply. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl