Larimer County is at the center of the battle over medical marijuana
James and Lisa Masters were getting ready to take their daughters fishing on the morning of Aug. 2, 2006, when two social workers and two police officers knocked on their door.
"We were just finishing folding laundry, getting ready for the day," says James, "and we had just recently medicated."
They had picked a bad time to take their medicine. The Masters are both medical marijuana patients, whose doctors recommend they get high to treat various physical and neurological illnesses.
The social workers raised allegations of child abuse and neglect toward their daughters, ages 4 and 6. The police officers, who the Masters were told came along in case the parents got violent - maybe in a fit of reefer madness - smelled the weed.
Inside, the Masters had 18 marijuana plant clones and an imminent harvest of 12 two-foot-high, bud-laden plants, which they say was for people suffering from glaucoma, cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis and other crippling diseases.
The Masters' home was serving as the county chapter of the Colorado Compassion Club, a statewide network that provides quality weed for medical marijuana patients, including themselves. Despite having doctors' recommendations for the medicinal crop as allowed through a state constitutional amendment, the Larimer County Drug Task Force snagged the pot - and child protection services snagged the Masters' daughters, who were separated from their parents for nearly two months.
"They came here with the understanding that we were medical [marijuana] patients," says James. "There's no reason that two happy, well-adjusted girls should ever be taken away from their family because of cannabis."
James and Lisa, now reunited with their daughters, are facing criminal charges for distributing a controlled substance. The bust raises all of the usual questions about the misplaced priorities of the War on Drugs. But, even more, the Masters' upcoming trial, scheduled for June 4 at the Larimer County Courthouse, is being called a "test case" for the rights of medical marijuana patients and caregivers.
The outcome could affect how Colorado regulates the cultivation, distribution and sale of the drug for medicinal use. Ultimately, the Masters' trial could lead to an expansion of the state's medical marijuana program and a wider acceptance of pot as a healing remedy instead of just another way to get stoned.
The Compassion Club
James doesn't know exactly what's wrong with his body. He might have porphyria - an enzyme abnormality - or an overstock supply of hepatitis antibodies, although he's never had the disease or a vaccination. What the Fort Collins native does know is that, "since the age of 23, I've been throwing up every day," he says.
He suffers from constant nausea, stomach cramps, muscle spasms and swelling. James is 29 years old and walks with a cane. In the first year of his illness, he fell into a coma. Later, incontinence kept him from holding down jobs or attending college, and he suffered from depression, unable to provide for his young family. The doctors prescribed him a lineup of pharmaceutical narcotics, including diazepam, hydromorphone and antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs.
"For the first three or four years of my marriage, I had a living corpse on my floor," says Lisa. "They had him on 11 medications at one point."
Lisa, 31, has her own list of physical maladies. Three protruding discs in her neck, two of which are possibly herniated. Joint swelling and muscle spasms. Carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists. Bursitis in both ankles.
Marijuana, the Masters say, provides relief from their sicknesses, numbing muscle and nerve pain and nausea.
"Symptomatically, I noticed I had less episodes when I was smoking," says James, "but, at that point [in 2001], I had kids and I couldn't afford marijuana."
In 2000, James remembers when the state passed a medical marijuana law, but he says it meant "absolutely nothing" at the time because there was so little information about the program. When he asked his family physician to refer him, the doctor refused to help and even failed to tell James about the state health department website for potential patients.
Colorado voters passed Amendment 20 in 2000, which allows doctor-recommended patients with debilitating diseases to smoke pot and hold up to two ounces, or six plants (with three or fewer being mature, flowering plants), of marijuana. Under the constitutional amendment, medical marijuana users are supposed to register with the state.
In January 2006, citizens in Gunnison County decided in favor of medical marijuana user Ryan Margenau. The jury held that, according to Amendment 20, a patient doesn't need to be registered, but does require a recommendation from a Colorado doctor.
"Patients don't have to go through every single step to be legal. They can just have a doctor's recommendation, and it's worth noting that the doctor's recommendation can be oral or written," says Brian Vicente, one of two attorneys representing the Masters and executive director of Sensible Colorado, a nonprofit group that works on behalf of medical marijuana users and supports pot decriminalization.
The staff of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Registry approves applications but does not issue licenses or permits. The state won't connect potential patients with doctors who will recommend pot for treatment, does not share information on how to acquire or grow weed, and does not recognize patients who have been approved for medical mari-juana use in other states.
Through another friend, the Masters met Thomas and Larisa Lawrence, a Denver couple, in 2003. Thomas Lawrence is a registered medical marijuana user, and he and his wife had begun serving as caregivers, maintaining a garden of high-quality pot for other patients. They shared information about doctors who would consider recommending people for treatment. The Lawrences eventually created the Colorado Compassion Club in 2004 to run a marijuana dispensary for patients, who donated money for pot, seeds or clippings.
The Masters first received doctors' recommendations in the summer of 2004, and they began coordinating with the Lawrences to help distribute pot to patients in Northern Colorado. Lisa cooks and bakes with ganja, providing meals for patients with throat illnesses or those who have never smoked. (She says her daughters know the couple smokes and grows pot for other sick people, but claims they never smoke in front of the girls and they've kept their plants and drugs in a locked study.)
Last May, James began organizing weekly gatherings to spread the word about how to enroll for medical marijuana privilidges, ultimately opening the Larimer County chapter of the Compassion Club.
"I started holding meetings," says James, "and what I heard over and over again from people with cancer, HIV, full-blown AIDS, was, ‘Where do I get medicine?'"
The Masters started their own garden for Compassion Club patients last summer. Their first homegrown crop consisted of the 12 mature plants the county drug task force confiscated in the August 2006 bust of their home.
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