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Activist Takes on Medical Pot Laws

Posted on: Monday, 6 December 2004, 15:00 CST

MADISON - Nearly mirroring a debate in the U.S. Supreme Court, the founder of Maine Vocals is challenging Maine's medical marijuana laws.

Don Christen, a marijuana reform advocate who has been arrested several times on marijuana violations, was arrested again last month.

Police charged him with growing and trafficking in marijuana, and providing marijuana to others, while Christen maintains he was legally providing pot to seriously ill people with doctors' permission as allowed under Maine's medical marijuana law.

Maine is one of 11 states that has passed such laws.

In October, Christen established the Medical Marijuana Distribution Center at his Madison home and was providing pot to seriously ill people who had received written notices from their doctors for the drug. At the time of his arrest, Christen said he had five "patients."

"The problem is the Maine law is so vague," he said. "I expected the police [to raid my home]. I knew they'd come."

Christen said that when the Maine Legislature passed the medical marijuana provision six years ago, it failed to implement a distribution plan.

Even Somerset County Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Carl Gottardi, who arrested Christen, agrees. "If, for example, a doctor allows that a patient should have marijuana, where do they get it?" Gottardi said Friday.

Gottardi said his drug eradication team is "fully aware that there are people with serious medical conditions that allow certain people to qualify to possess a certain amount of marijuana. We take that into consideration and we don't go around raiding people who have slips from their doctors."

As an example, Gottardi said that during the raid on Christen's home, Christen's wife, Pam, who has cancer, was not charged with any drug violations. "Mrs. Christen obviously does have a serious illness. I can feel for that in my heart. And she was not charged with anything."

"We are not after Don Christen because he is supplying people with medical conditions. He violated the law," said Gottardi.

"We don't make up the laws. We enforce them," he added.

Pam Christen said she is petitioning the court to return the marijuana, which she said she legally uses as medication.

"I am a cancer patient, undergoing chemotherapy which all [drug] agents acknowledged prior to entry to my home," said Pam Christen. "They had no regard for the Medical Marijuana Law whatsoever and no compassion for me as they left me nothing to medicate with, all fully well knowing that I was sick as hell and would be miserable soon without it."

Vassalboro resident Carroll Cummings is also petitioning the court for return of the marijuana, which he uses as medication and was obtaining from Don Christen.

"I was charged recently - Oct. 13, 2003 - for possession of a usable amount of marijuana and the charges were dropped once I provided evidence that I met all the requirements set forth in the Medical Marijuana Law," Cummings said Friday.

"Though the Marijuana Law does help me, if you study it thoroughly you will find it lacks provisions for me to acquire my [medicinal marijuana]. Thus, to protect myself from buying from an undercover DEA agent or one of their informants, and due to the fact our state legislators have failed to pass any type of legislation that allows for distribution, I had to take it upon myself to find someone willing to take the chance and provide me with my medicine when I need it. I found the person I believed I could trust, Donald Christen, a friend for nearly 15 years."

Cummings said that his notarized doctor's notice is attached to the wall right next to the Christens' front door, along with similar notices for four other people. Cummings maintained that the drug agents seized and have failed to return his legal medication.

Christen said his operation was public and not covert.

"Everything was upstairs in the storage room and was not hidden at all," Christen said. "Some of the processed marijuana was in jars in my kitchen cabinets that we used daily, so it was handy. There was also some leaf that was trimmed off the marijuana, that was to be thrown in the wood stove or on the compost but the police want to add that weight to the 'processed marijuana' to make the weight up over a pound of marijuana. The patients don't want to smoke leaf as it has no medicinal qualities and doesn't work. Leaf is also more carcinogenic than tobacco products."

He said he also had 13 plants as part of his winter medicinal crop. Christen said he is legally allowed to grow six plants per patient.

Christen is scheduled for a bail hearing next week and an arraignment on the drug charges is set for Jan. 19 at Skowhegan District Court.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court questioned whether state medical marijuana laws might be abused by people who aren't really sick as it debated whether the federal government can prosecute patients who smoke pot on doctors' orders.

The justices refused three years ago to protect distributors of medical marijuana from federal prosecution.

This time, they are examining the power of federal agents to go after sick people who use homegrown cannabis with their doctor's permission and their state's approval. A ruling is not expected until next summer.

Source: Bangor Daily News

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