Pubdate: Mon, 28 Oct 2013
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Tom Ragan

'DOCTOR' TURNING OVER NEW LEAF

After Prison Release, Dr. Reefer Reflects on His Marijuana Efforts

There's always a fall guy. That one who sticks his neck out, rolls 
the dice, walks the fine line, then gets busted while others doing 
the same thing go free.

Pierre Werner says he's that guy.

Werner is known for his gigantic Dr. Reefer billboard signs that dot 
the Las Vegas Valley. This legitimate medical marijuana referral 
service that he started has helped to make legal hundreds of Nevada 
patients who rely on marijuana to treat their ills.

But he went too far. Werner, a three-time felon with a past in drug 
deals, caved in to temptation, opened up an all-in-the-family pot 
dispensary on Pecos Road in Las Vegas and started to sell some of the 
hydroponic strains to some of the very patients he made legal, 
including undercover police officers. And that landed him in federal 
prison. Two weeks ago, the 42-year-old Werner was released from 
Terminal Island just outside of Los Angeles where he served more than 
22 months.

He was one of nearly a dozen pot dispensary owners caught in raids 
carried out in Las Vegas in the fall of 2010 by the federal Drug 
Enforcement Agency with help from undercover officers from the 
Metropolitan Police Department.

But it was Werner who got the stiff sentence - 41 months.

"The feds did me dirty," he said in his Las Vegas home, where he's 
living with his mother these days while he looks to reinvent himself. 
"It's time for somebody else to take up the cause."

Pierre Werner someday could be viewed as an anomaly in local history 
if the medical marijuana movement keeps up its pace. Nevada next year 
will start licensing and taxing medical marijuana dispensaries for 
the first time. Twenty-two states have legalized its use to treat 
medical conditions and more are on their way. Many proponents are 
suggesting that the legalization of the drug for recreational use might follow.

In an interview last week, Werner talked about his time in prison and 
what has happened in the medical marijuana business since his time. 
He also talked about where he's going from here.

CLUBHOUSE ON AN ISLAND

Terminal Island is a low-security federal prison that, by Werner's 
own admission, doubled as "a virtual clubhouse on an island."

It had a better view of the ocean than some coastal residents had 
from land, he said.

It had workout facilities and cable TV. Werner, a bilingual native of 
El Paso, Texas, would tune in each week to "Pablo Escobar: Patron de 
Mal," a popular Colombian television series on the life of the drug 
lord who was killed in the early 1990s.

Prisoners didn't pass time in cells with bars, Werner noted. They 
slept in college-like dormitories.

After 10 p.m. it was "lockdown time." That's when they would play 
poker or read books.

"I preferred to read books," Werner said. "I had at least 30 
marketing books sent to me. I thought I knew a lot about marketing 
from Dr. Reefer, but those books turned me into a pro."

It's the same prison that housed such infamous people as Chicago's Al 
Capone in the late 1930s, New York City mobster Henry Hill in the 
1970s - after whom the 1990 movie "Goodfellas" was based - and 
Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor who openly advocated the use of 
psychedelic drugs.

TARGET DR. REEFER

Werner isn't as well known as those criminals and no movie deals are 
yet in the making, but he's a local celebrity in his own right, at 
least among those who use marijuana for medical reasons.

While his criminal rap sheet reads like just about any other drug 
criminal's, from possession of methamphetamine in the late 1980s in 
Carlsbad, N.M., when he was 18 to getting busted in New Jersey for 
possession of 170 pounds of marijuana in his early 30s - it was 
perhaps the "cat and mouse game" between him and federal authorities 
that made him somewhat of a hero.

At the crux was freedom of speech and freedom to advertise in a state 
where medical marijuana was already legal. And yet every time Werner 
put up one of his Dr. Reefer billboards, agents saw it as an affront 
to their careers and tried to take it down, he said. And if it wasn't 
the feds, he said, it was the Mormon Church, which actually did 
succeed in taking down one of his billboards that stood on its land 
at Decatur Boulevard near the Las Vegas Beltway.

And yet the First Amendment often prevailed and Dr. Reefer's referral 
company went gangbusters for a long time, hooking up patients with 
appropriate doctors for diagnoses, then filing the paperwork with the 
state in order to secure medical marijuana cards for a fee of $300 to 
$400 each. At last count, Nevada had well over 3,000 medical 
marijuana patients, many of whom were made legal under Werner's business.

Werner, who owns the Dr. Reefer trademark, said he's amazed at how 
popular the movement has become, even while he was incarcerated.

"That's when all of the dispensaries started to open up, when I 
started legalizing the people," Werner said. "The name was just 
something I struck by accident. It was a combination of 'Reefer 
Madness' along with the fact that you needed a doctor to get your 
card. That's where it was all born, but I had no clue that it would 
take off like it did."

OVER THE EDGE

But Werner, who sold the Dr. Reefer company to a buddy after he was 
incarcerated, didn't do time in prison for the medical marijuana 
cards. Rather, he couldn't resist the urge to provide the "medicine" 
to the patients who had nowhere else to turn to.

So Werner, who has operated medical marijuana dispensaries in 
Boulder, Colo., and Santa Barbara, Calif., opened up his own 
dispensary in Las Vegas. That dispensary was raided in September 2010.

Brought down in the raid was Werner's mother, Reynalda Barnett, now 
62, who sold 4.8 grams of pot to undercover officers and received a 
four-month federal prison sentence. His younger brother received probation.

But because Dr. Reefer was actually owned and registered in Werner's 
name, he was slapped with the heaviest sentence of all, even though 
he was living in Boulder at the time.

The raid came at a time when pot dispensaries were at an all-time 
high in the Las Vegas Valley, nearly 50 of them operating 
clandestinely, according to U.S. Attorney Dan Bogden. Bogden said 
Werner was just one of a dozen owners who were arrested by the 
federal government between 2009 and 2010.

If Werner hadn't been a three-time felon at the time of his November 
2011 sentencing by U.S. District Judge Philip Pro, he probably 
wouldn't have received the sentence that he did, Bogden said.

Werner served his first stint in the Nevada State Prison System, in 
the High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs, for operating 
marijuana grow houses in Las Vegas, for which he did nearly two years.

He claims he has emerged as a "new man" and is in "the best shape of 
my life" after his latest stint in federal prison.

He even flexes his sixpack abs for the camera.

Doing the time for the crime wasn't nearly as difficult as having to 
endure the months of rehabilitation classes at Terminal Island, where 
he had to admit that he was addicted to marijuana. He said medical 
marijuana has always been a medicine with which he treats his bipolar problems.

"It was this government propaganda that they kept shoving down my 
throat," said Werner. "That's what really got to me. When are people 
going to wake up and realize that medical marijuana can actually help 
people? Well, I'm giving it all up. Somebody else is going to have to 
take up the cause."

These days, as part of condition of release, Werner is working with 
well-known weight loss Dr. Ivan Goldsmith, helping drive more traffic 
to Goldsmith's business, Trim Care. Goldsmith said he believes in 
second chances and believes "people can be redeemed. I was asked to 
take Pierre under my wing and he did a great job for me."

Werner posted videos on YouTube for Goldsmith, driving more traffic 
to the doctor's website, even managing to get him the moniker on 
Google as "Best Doctor in Las Vegas."

"He's got a real knack for Web marketing and search optimization," 
said Goldsmith, who has been friends with "Pierre" for a long time. 
"Business is now booming."

Werner, who is now opening his own DrPageRank website, laughs at his 
work, saying he liked the fact that if you Google Viagra and Las 
Vegas, Goldsmith will appear at the top of the page. Hence, his new 
website. The marketing technique was the same one he employed while 
owning Dr. Reefer, he said.

As for the future of medical marijuana, Werner is trying to wean 
himself off it all.

"If you really want to make money, try to own a casino," he said.

He warned interested entrepreneurs to "look out" as Nevada starts 
licensing and taxing medical marijuana dispensaries all over the 
state starting in 2014.

"If you're getting into the business next year and you plan on 
opening a dispensary, it could be a trap. The feds can come in at any 
time and ruin your life. It doesn't matter what state law says. You 
could serve 20 years in prison for it. Twenty years. For marijuana. 
Think about that.

"I consider myself fortunate."
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