cannabisnews.com: Tuolumne Man Fights for Medical Pot





Tuolumne Man Fights for Medical Pot
Posted by CN Staff on July 28, 2002 at 18:04:29 PT
By Francis P. Garland, Lode Bureau Chief 
Source: Stockton Record
 With a backpack and small cooler at his feet, Myron Mower looks much like any other 40-year-old man relaxing on the deck of a friend's house on a hot summer day. But the contents of those containers set him apart -- as does the fact that he's the central figure in a landmark legal case. Where one might expect to find a six-pack of soft drinks or some snacks, Mower -- known to his friends as Carl -- packs a supply of insulin, liquid morphine and an alphabet soup of medications that help him cope with diabetes and related ailments. 
On the table next to Mower sits a pipe that he uses to take a different sort of medicine -- marijuana. He's been using it since he turned 13, five years after he was diagnosed with having diabetes. He smokes five or six times a day and swears it's the only thing that makes him feel like eating and drinking. He also said it helps his stomach withstand the battery of pills and liquid medications he must take. And that it helps clear up what's left of his disappearing vision. "I'd go a month without eating because I don't get hungry," he said. "And I get dehydrated. If I smoke, it makes me thirsty." Even his doctor agrees that it helps and has recommended that Mower use marijuana to help him combat the relentless waves of nausea and other diabetes-related symptoms that pummel him on most days. Still, Mower has been branded a criminal for his marijuana use not once but twice since moving to Tuolumne County from the Santa Cruz Mountains in the late 1980s. Recently, however, the state's highest court set aside his latest conviction, and Mower now waits to see if he must stand trial again. In the meantime, he takes life one day at a time, absorbing up to 10 insulin shots a day while gulping down handfuls of pills that his wife and caregiver, Laurie, keeps in plastic containers and gives him to control his blood pressure, heart rate, stomach problems, nausea, pain and anxiety. "This is what I do with my life," he said, trying to relax with friends. Although this month's state Supreme Court ruling overturned his conviction and provides medical-marijuana users like Mower with more legal protection, he isn't in a celebratory mood. "I guess it helps people," he said. "But this will all be for nothing if I have to go through another trial." Mower believes his appeal accomplished very little, but Laurie disagrees. "I think we've planted our flagpole on the top of the mountain and said, 'Hallelujah,' " she told him. "We've come a long way. "We protected all these people from a three-day grueling trial like they put you through. People who are sick don't need to be dragged out there for three days. They get to prove they're innocent first. That's what you've done." Mower was so sick during his 1998 trial that his public defender, Karen Block-Davis, would signal the judge when Mower needed a break. Once, he vomited "on the record," according to court documents. Richard Runcie, the Fresno attorney who represented Mower on his appeal to the state Supreme Court, said his client was the right person to test Proposition 215, which became law in 1996 and gives people with certain illnesses the legal right to use and grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. Before the state Supreme Court's recent ruling, those who claimed they were legitimate medical-marijuana users had to show a preponderance of evidence to that effect. Now, they must only raise a reasonable doubt that they meet the legal criteria -- and could avoid a trial altogether as a result. Runcie said that Mower's failing health and legitimate need for marijuana make him "the real thing. "He's not marginal," he said. "He's a fastball down the middle in terms of why Proposition 215 passed. Even the district attorney who prosecuted him said in his closing arguments that if there was anyone in the state who Proposition 215 was passed for, it was (Mower). He's right." But the district attorney still prosecuted Mower -- for the second time in a decade. The first time, authorities busted him for a small indoor growing operation, and he was convicted and sentenced to five years' probation. Then in July 1997, authorities conducted a probation search on his home while he was in a local hospital because of complications from his diabetes. Law enforcement agents confiscated 28 of his plants, leaving him with three -- the recommended limit that county authorities had set for legal medical-marijuana patients under Proposition 215. A few weeks after that probation search, authorities arrested Mower and charged him with possession and cultivation of marijuana. A jury convicted him, largely because he had told authorities he had been growing marijuana for himself and two other people who could not grow it. Mower claims he made the statement under duress -- authorities interviewed him while he was in the hospital and under the influence of a number of drugs. He was sentenced to five years' probation again and fined $1,000, but he appealed his conviction. The state Court of Appeals upheld the Tuolumne County Superior Court verdict, but earlier this month, the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. The state's high court returned the case to that lower court, and now District Attorney Donald Segerstrom must decide whether to take Mower to trial again. Mower, who has no vision in his right eye and less than 10 percent vision in his left, is worried. "For some reason," he said, "I feel like they're going to give me another trial." Segerstrom said his office would consider a number of factors before deciding how to proceed. Those factors include the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, given the latest court ruling that says a person now must raise only a reasonable doubt about being a legitimate medical marijuana user. "We're not going to speculate about what we're going to do," Segerstrom said. "We want to make a reasoned decision." The Mowers, though, fear they might wind up back in court. "We're still afraid they want us," said Laurie Mower, who was charged with marijuana possession and cultivation along with her husband back in 1997. Charges against her were dismissed before Carl's trial started in March 1998. Carl Mower never has tried to hide his marijuana use. In fact, he says, authorities told him not to hide the seven plants they found in his greenhouse during a visit about six months prior to his arrest in 1997. He also said that after Proposition 215 passed, he and his wife asked his probation officer several times how many plants he could keep and remain within the law. At one point, Laurie Mower said, the officer told them, "There's no limit; grow what you want." Mower said three plants would only provide him with enough marijuana for about six weeks at his rate of use -- about 8 grams a day. He said he was growing 31 plants because he figured only half of them would end up providing the substance he needed to combat his myriad medical problems. Mower said his statement from his hospital bed that he was growing marijuana for two others was not true. According to court documents, Mower was medicated, highly sedated and suffering from low blood sugar at the time of the interview, a condition that causes him to act "crazy drunk" without realizing it. Block-Davis, who now is in private practice in Ventura County, said the interview never should have occurred. "It was not a good idea for police to interview him while he was in excruciating pain and on a morphine drip," she said. Block-Davis said it also would be a mistake for the county to try Mower again, given his condition. "It was really a waste of resources to try him in the first place," she said. "He's not hurting anybody. He's not some big drug supplier pushing marijuana on small children. He's just a sick guy who needs his marijuana." Mower said he certainly doesn't feel like a criminal. "I've already done almost 10 years of probation for medical marijuana," he said. "It's a medicine. People take medicine every day." Note: Sickly diabetic might face another trial. Source: Record, The (CA)Author: Francis P. Garland, Lode Bureau Chief Published: Sunday, July 28, 2002 Copyright: 2002 The RecordContact: editor recordnet.comWebsite: http://www.recordnet.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmCourt Sends Victory To Marijuana Patients http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13507.shtmlNo Prosecution for Medical Pot Users http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13497.shtmlMedical Pot Users May Be Immune To Prosecution http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13485.shtml
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