Veteran activist Michael “Mickey” Martin has a broad base of experience in the medical marijuana industry, including work as the director of T-Comp Consulting and the associate editor of West Coast Cannabis magazine. However, Mickey is most widely known for his work in manufacturing food-based medicines through a company called Tainted Inc., later renamed Compassion Medicinal Edibles. This company, which produced cannabis-infused food products for medical marijuana patients, operated for many years and pioneered safety standards for the entire industry. Unfortunately, a law enforcement raid shut the company down in September 2007, leaving Mickey and three other Tainted Inc. employees facing federal charges. Since California’s medical marijuana laws don’t provide a defense in federal court, Mickey ended up pleading guilty to a single count of “conspiracy to manufacture a mixture or substance containing marijuana.” In September 2008, in a courtroom packed with medical marijuana activists and community leaders, a federal judge gave Mickey a 24-month sentence. He served the first half of this term on home detention but was required to spend the remainder in a halfway house. Following a large public protest on January 4th, 2010, Mickey checked into a community corrections facility in San Francisco. Although he avoided hard prison time, he and his family have endured significant hardships as a result of his sentence. He has chronicled these struggles at http://www.freetainted.com

Michael Martin
111 Taylor St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Alice Wiegand and her husband Jeffre Sanderson were living a quiet, untroubled life in northern California’s rural Plumas County in the summer of 2006. The couple had a nice home, a baby son named Jamie, and an impressive organic vegetable garden. But they had something else that caught the attention of law enforcement and triggered a raid that shattered their lives: a plot of approximately sixty-four tall marijuana plants that could be seen from the sky. When sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at the home, they discovered another grow area: a basement room where over a hundred marijuana clones were in production. However, they also found something that made the district attorney refuse to prosecute the case: evidence showing the grow was a collective garden that supplied ten patients whose doctors had approved their use of marijuana under California’s Compassionate Use Act.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office had no such reluctance. Since federal law does not recognize state medical marijuana protections, the case was promptly taken over by federal prosecutors. In the months that followed, Jeffre and Alice struggled to stabilize their family. After bailing out of jail, they got Jamie back from Child Protective Services, and they also welcomed the birth of a new son named Jahson.

The family would not remain whole for long. They lost both children to CPS in October 2007, when Jeffre was arrested for cultivating a new crop of marijuana. He defended himself in federal court by claiming that he used marijuana religiously as a Rasta, but the judge didn’t buy the argument and ruled against Jeffre in November 2007. That same month, Jeffre and Alice accepted plea deals to resolve the charges against them. Jeffre pled guilty to cultivating under 80kg of marijuana, a charge that does not carry a mandatory minimum sentence. Alice made a guilty plea on conspiracy to cultivate, and she agreed to forfeit the family’s home and farm as part of the deal.

In April 2008, a federal judge sentenced Jeffre to eighteen months in prison and gave Alice the lesser term of six months. However, the judge allowed the couple to serve staggered sentences, so that Alice could remain out of prison long enough to regain custody of the two children. Jeffre’s eighteen months ended up being like a tour of California’s penal institutions: a combination of pre-sentencing jail time in Sacramento, stints at prisons in San Bernardino and Herlong, and several months at a halfway house in San Francisco.

After Jeffre’s release, it was Alice’s turn. On July 13th, 2009, Alice said goodbye to her children and drove with Jeffre to her temporary new home: a prison camp for women in Dublin, California.

“Her sons are being told the truth,” said Pam Ayoob, Alice’s mother-in-law. “Mommy has to go to jail for growing plants in the yard.”

Read more on this story: http://www.medicalmarijuanaofamerica.com/court-reports/sanderson.html

Will Foster

Will Foster's lengthy battle with Oklahoma's justice system was featured in Shattered Lives: Portraits from America’s Drug War.  As the book relates, Foster received a 93-year sentence in Oklahoma for growing a small medical marijuana garden to treat his rheumatoid arthritis.  On appeal, he was later able to get his sentence reduced to 20 years.  He ended up serving 4.5 years in prison before being released in 2001.

However, Oklahoma wasn't done with Foster. Although he had successfully completed his supervised release two and a half years after moving to the Bay Area, the parole board issued a warrant to get him back to serve more time.  Their excuse was that they had made a mistake when calculating the length of his parole.

Things came to a head when Foster was raided and charged with cultivation in northern California, although he claims the grow was legal under the state's medical marijuana law.  After keeping Foster in jail for a year, Sonoma County prosecutors dropped the charges against him.  By then, however, Oklahoma parole authorities demanded he return to the state to finish his original sentence.  Foster tried to fight the extradition on grounds of habeas corpus, but was nonetheless returned to Oklahoma in September 2009. 

Two months later, though, the parole board and the state governor decided that Foster should be released.  He walked free in late November 2009.

Charles C. Lynch is the former owner and managing Caregiver for Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers in Morro Bay.

The dispensary opened on April 1 2006 with the blessing of the city and even joined the Chamber of Commerce.  In July 2006 the dispensary was granted a Conditional Use Permit from the City of Morro Bay to include a Medical Cannabis Nursery at the dispensary.

David Davidson and his partner Cynthia Blake were raided by Tehama County Sheriffs in July 2003, when officers seized the medical marijuana gardens at their homes in Oakland and Red Bluff, CA. The pair was arrested and charged with cultivation and possession for sale, in spite of claims that they were legitimate caregivers under California law. The plant count was soon the subject of contentious dispute -- the number varied between 36 and 1803, depending on which source was asked. This matter was going to be sorted out in court in Tehama County, but the plan to prosecute the pair was diverted from local hands and onto the desks of federal authorities in January 2004. During a hearing in a Tehama County courtroom, Davidson and Blake were told by the Deputy District Attorney that charges against them would be dropped...but the prospect of vindication quickly turned into a nightmare as the two defendants were swept away from their attorneys and into federal custody. By the time they bailed out of jail, the harsh realities of federal prosecution had begun to settle in. Davidson subsequently fled, and Blake stayed to answer to the charges that threatened to land her in prison for decades. After being offered leniency in exchange for information against her partner, Blake agreed to a plea deal that only got her time behind bars whittled down to only a few months. Shortly thereafter, Davidson was captured in New Mexico and brought to Sacramento County Jail, where he waited nearly three years before accepting a plea deal for time served.  He was finally released in April 2010.

The history of Tom Kikuchi's case goes back to July 2002, when he and Stephanie Landa were both arrested for their role in a medical marijuana grow operation in San Francisco. The pair maintains that they were given the blessing of the San Francisco Police Department, who later raided the operation and turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. This change of jurisdiction put the defendants in greater peril, since the federal government refuses to recognize state laws permitting medical marijuana. Stripped of their defense and facing a trial that could have resulted in life behind bars, Kikuchi and Landa eventually pled guilty to a single charge of maintaining a place for the manufacture of a controlled substance. Kikuchi went immediately into custody, and served out his 37-month sentence at a prison camp. But an incident in May 2007 landed him back behind bars, as prosecutors alleged he violated the terms of his supervised release due to his connection to a Los Angeles area grow house. Although the links between Kikuchi and the house were purely circumstantial, Judge William Alsup sentenced Kikuchi to the maximum sentence of two years in prison for violating his probation. He served this time in a federal institution in Arizona, then a series of halfway houses. Kikuchi was finally released from custody in June of 2009, at which time he was left to contend with state charges from the Los Angeles grow house bust.

The year was 2002. The place was San Francisco, a city that publicly declared itself a "sanctuary" for medical marijuana. Patient and caregiver Stephanie Landa had moved from southern California to follow that promise of sanctuary, hoping to legally grow a collective garden of various strains of medicinal cannabis. Along with partners Tom Kikuchi and Kevin Gage, Landa claims she had secured specific approval from the San Francisco Police Department for the cultivation. According to Landa, an SFPD captain had even advised her on where to locate the grow operation -- close to police headquarters, for added safety. The advice began to look sinister when local officers raided the warehouse a few months afterwards, although the SFPD ultimately released the three partners without charges. When the trio was indicted by the U.S. Attorney just weeks later, however, the move appeared to be a matter of local law enforcement handing a case over to the federal government for prosecution. During the resulting court proceedings, a disparity in the plant count became an important determining factor. Although expert witness Chris Conrad had counted only 880 "rootballs" in the evidence, Landa and her co-defendants were charged with cultivating a total of 1245 plants. Now facing mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years each for exceeding the 1000 plant mark, the three co-defendants all accepted plea deals. Landa and Gage were sentenced to 41 months, while Kikuchi received the somewhat lighter sentence of 37 months. Both male defendants began serving their sentences right away, but Landa was permitted to delay her incarceration in order to care for the minor child she shared with Kikuchi. After a well-attended ceremony marking her surrender, Landa began serving her sentence in January 2007.

Stephanie Landa was released to a halfway house on October 13th, 2009.

John Sullivan was indicted in July 2006, when the Drug Enforcement Administration executed massive simultaneous raids on San Diego’s medical marijuana dispensaries. The action shut down most of the dispensaries in the region, including Sullivan’s “Purple Bud Room” and “Tender Holistics Care.” During the investigation of these facilities, which began in September 2005, an undercover officer claimed that he was able to purchase marijuana for his dog. Sullivan’s indictment contained counts for cultivation, as well as for conspiracy to cultivate and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. While also facing state charges stemming from the raids, Sullivan pled guilty in federal court to growing three hundred marijuana plants. In August 2007, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison and five years of probation. Sullivan served some of his time in Oregon, before being transferred to a federal prison in Florida. He was then released to a southern California halfway house in mid-2010.

Federal agents began investigating Sparky Rose in 2005, after the Los Angeles Police Department raided a West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensary called the “Yellow House” that he was running as part of the “Compassionate Caregivers” chain. Rose then went on to become the director of “New Remedies Cooperative” in San Francisco, which was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration in October 2006. After searching the dispensary and various associated grow sites, agents reported seizing $125,000 in cash and thousands of marijuana plants. Calling Rose “a major statewide pot supplier,” the U.S. Attorney charged him with various counts for the manufacture and distribution of marijuana. He was also charged with money laundering, based on the government’s accusation that he laundered over $3 million from marijuana proceeds in order to supply himself with a $9600/week salary and various luxury items such as a Porsche convertible. Rose maintained that these calculations were grossly inaccurate and denied that he and his employees were profiteering from medical marijuana. However, Rose eventually accepted a plea deal and, in March 2008, was sentenced to 37 months.  He served his time in the prison camp at Lompoc, California, and was released to a Los Angeles area halfway house in August 2009. 

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kenneth Affolter’s company “Beyond Bomb” supplied California’s medical marijuana dispensaries with a wide array of medicinal edibles. The marijuana-infused products, which included everything from sodas to candy bars, were labeled as parodies of mainstream snacks with names like “Rasta Reece's” and “Toka-Cola.” Trouble began in February 2006, when Oakland police officers responded to a burglar alarm at one of Affolter’s warehouses. An investigation by federal drug agents quickly followed, culminating in a raid on three locations a month later. In addition to the edible products, agents reported seizing approximately $100,000 in cash and nearly 12,000 rooted marijuana plants, as well as 17,736 unrooted marijuana clones. Eleven of Affolter’s employees were also charged in the federal case that resulted. They all accepted plea deals and received sentences that ranged from probation to 18 months in prison. Affolter pled guilty to a charge of conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and in March 2007 received a sentence of 70 months in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Thomas Grossi Sr. has been many things, from a pawnshop owner to a decorated helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, but it was his ownership of warehouses that got him in trouble with the law. He has maintained that the marijuana grown in these Oakland properties was destined for northern California dispensaries, where it would be distributed to medical marijuana patients. That claim didn't matter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was called in to investigate after the California Highway Patrol discovered 2,379 marijuana plants at one of Grossi's properties in June 2004. A federal indictment followed in February 2005, and the case went to trial in January 2006. The jury convicted Grossi for making one of his properties available to another person for the purpose of unlawfully manufacturing marijuana. The jury deadlocked on counts related to another location owned by Grossi, but shortly afterwards he made a plea agreement in which he admitted to these charges as well as to managing a third location where marijuana was grown. At sentencing in May 2007, the defense attorney emphasized that Grossi merely allowed the cultivation and that he "didn't proactively decide to grow marijuana." Nonetheless, Grossi was sentenced to 30 months of incarceration and ordered to forfeit approximately $396,000.  After serving his time at Lompoc, he was released from prison in the summer of 2009.

From Wikipedia:

In 1999, Kubby and his wife Michele were arrested and faced trial for growing his own cannabis in his home, though he was entitled to do so legally on behalf of himself and his wife, also a licensed cannabis patient. Calling his arrest the "Scopes monkey trial of medical marijuana," Kubby remained defiant in his support of the Compassionate Use Act. He maintains that the prosecution was politically motivated, implicating then-Attorney General Dan Lungren's office.^[9] Lungren had been aggressive in resisting the implementation of Proposition 215,^[10] to the point of issuing instructions to peace officers on how to cross-examine cannabis patients so as to undermine their claim of sanction.^[11]

In jail for 72 hours after the arrest, Steve Kubby was deprived of medical marijuana and became seriously ill. His blood pressure shot up to dangerous levels. USC Medical Center's Dr. Vincent DeQuattro, who made Kubby's original diagnosis, wrote a letter to the court explaining Steve's condition and warning the judge what could happen if Steve was further deprived of cannabis.

Kubby described their ordeal in his official complaint,

Michele Kubby won an acquittal on all charges. Steve Kubby's trial, owing to one juror's refusal to acquit, received a mistrial on all the cannabis charges, which were eventually dropped. The jury also voted to convict on a possession charge involving a psilocybin mushroom stem and a few peyote buttons (a felony) found in their house. Kubby was sentenced to 120 days in jail.