ALERT: #368 California Patient Caught In The War On Medical Marijuana

[Courtesy of DrugSense] FOCUS Alert #368 - Tuesday, 24 Jun 2008 Orange County is considered to be among the most conservative in California. The Orange County Register is the county's major newspaper. Over the years the newspaper has supported in editorials and columns California's Proposition 215. Last Saturday the newspaper printed the article below. In addition to the article, the newspaper's website is currently conducting an opinion poll titled "Should marijuana be legal?" and providing a discussion forum about the article. If you wish to vote in the poll and/or place a comment in the forum please go to: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/monson-says-marijuana-2072170-police-adams Please also consider sending a Letter to the Editor to The Orange County Register expressing your reaction to the article. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do. ********************************************************************* Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 Source: Orange County Register, The (CA) Copyright: 2008 The Orange County Register Contact: [email protected] Author: Eugene W. Fields, The Orange County Register DISABLED MAN FIGHTS FOR HIS MARIJUANA Charles Monson, a Quadriplegic, Had His Home Raided and His Medicinal Marijuana Seized at Gunpoint. A swimming accident three decades ago at Newport Beach left Charles Monson paralyzed. A drug raid at his home about a year ago left Monson without the marijuana he says he needs. The raid has left him depending on a medical marijuana dispensary in Orange that was also raided. Fighting to stay in business, the small store-front dispensary has helped Monson deal with his pain. Monson, 45, was paralyzed in 1979 when he and a friend decided to go for a swim. "I dove under a wave, hit a shallow spot and broke my neck," Monson recalls. "I was paralyzed instantly and was floating face-down." Monson, who is confined to a wheelchair and has lost most of the use of his hands, tried to remain active. He's an avid skydiver, despite breaking his legs twice Nevertheless, he says he lives in constant pain and discomfort. "My brain isn't able to constantly able to monitor the muscles in my legs," he says. "Any little stimulus like being touched or moving my wheelchair or sitting still for a while and then moving will trigger a muscle spasm, big ones, that will yank my body to the side." As a result, Monson was chronically sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep behind the wheel of his specially equipped van. Doctors prescribed muscle relaxants and various other seizure medications, but Monson says he didn't like the side effects. Finds Relief "I had tried Valium, Baclofen, Gabapentin. That gave me a sense of not being sharp in my mind and just feeling kind of woozy," Monson says. "I tried Marinol, which is synthetic marijuana. It's very hard to dose. It's either not very effective, or when it gets to the point of being effective, you're loopy." Monson says a friend recommended marijuana in the 1980s and after trying it, he said he found relief: "I smoked it in bed and I slept better than I ever had. The other thing that makes cannabis so much more effective than any other of the spasticity drugs is that it allows me rather than just treating my spasticity to manage it." When California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, which allowed marijuana usage for medicinal purposes, Monson says he started to grow marijuana. Monson says his life changed dramatically on the morning of October 30, 2007. "I wake up to a horrendously loud pounding on the front door at 7 a.m. in the morning," Monson says. "My friend said it was the police and I told him to let them in." Monson says a dozen Orange police officers armed with assault rifles and bullet-proof vests swarmed into his modest home and handcuffed both his house guest and care provider before coming into Monson's bedroom, demanding he get out of bed. "I told them I couldn't so they uncuffed my care provider," Monson says. "He got me dressed and into the chair and then they (police) went about ransacking my house." Monson says he used a spare bedroom to cultivate his marijuana plants, where a sign posted on the door read that the plants were for medicinal purposes. The police entered the room and, according to Monson, confiscated 16 plants and roughly 2-1/2 ounces of marijuana. "I told them I was growing it legally and they said it's against federal law," Monson says. "They came down on me like I was some drug kingpin." Sgt. Dan Adams of the Orange Police Department says 19 plants were seized and Monson was arrested for felony cultivation of marijuana, theft of utilities, sales of marijuana and conspiracy. "When you get 19 plants and you get a full-blown irrigation system and a light system, it was obviously a substantial operation he had running there," Adams said. "It's a good amount, but anything is a good amount because it's illegal as far as law enforcement is concerned." The District Attorney's office declined to prosecute the case. "The first month after the raid, I couldn't sleep well," Monson said. "Finally, it occurred to me that I was having a post-traumatic effect because I didn't know when they were going to bang down my door again." Searching for Marijuana Fearful of growing marijuana, Monson turned to other sources. "I had to go to people a buy it. None of them have ever been touched by the police," he says. "I don't know why they came after me. Somebody thought I was a king-pin." In December, Monson hired an attorney and decided to file a civil suit against the city. Four months later he read about Nature's Wellness, a dispensary on Lincoln Avenue in Orange that had been raided. Monson said he visited with Bob Adams, the dispensary owner, to share information about his case. Monson said he worked out a deal to receive half of the two ounces of marijuana he needs a month to manage his condition. Adams, who was detained by the Drug Enforcement Agency after his shop was raided in March, says he was just providing a service to another patient with a doctor's recommendation. "This man needs medicine and I've got it," Adams says. "That's what I'm here for." Adams says hearing about Monson's arrest upset him. "We've got a quadriplegic here. It's amazing that he wakes up every morning," Adams says. "Don't we have better things to do as far as our local authorities are concerned than chase around a quadriplegic that's in pain?" Monson says he was grateful for the aid from the dispensary and is waiting for his court case to move ahead. "I probably won't (grow) until that whole thing is settled with the police," he says. "I don't want a decent garden going again, just to have it taken away." ********************************************************************* Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides, or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed at [email protected]. ********************************************************************* PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. 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