Patient May Sue Police for Pot Arrest

The latest test of California’s medical marijuana law is shaping up in Simi Valley, where a man arrested last month for cultivating more than a dozen pot plants said he will sue police for violating his rights as a patient.

Dean Jones, 62, made the announcement Monday at his lawyer’s office in Thousand Oaks, saying he will file suit against the department and one of the arresting officers for violating the protections of Proposition 215, a 1996 initiative approved by 56% of voters statewide.

“I’m just a patient trying to get medication,” Jones said. “I believe that I did everything right according to the law.”

Police, however, say officers conducted themselves properly and are confident that if the case is filed and goes to court, they will be vindicated.

“We don’t, by any stretch of the imagination, believe that we violated Mr. Jones’ rights,” said Lt. Neal Rein of the Simi Valley Police Department. “I think that the fact that he was even arrested says a lot about the case.”

Jones, a military veteran who said he incurred leg, back and head injuries during a training exercise, said he suffers from constant migraine headaches, diabetes, high blood pressure and periodic foot inflammation.

He has also been diagnosed with skin cancer and, as recently as last week, underwent surgery to have lesions removed from his face and neck.

In addition to a card identifying him as a patient eligible to receive the drug, he has a prescription from his longtime doctor for marijuana to aid his treatment regimen.

Jones, a marijuana user for more than 20 years, said he began growing the drug about four months ago after the Cannabis Club in Thousand Oaks was closed by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Worried that people could spot his potted marijuana plants in his backyard and get the wrong impression, Jones and his 82-year-old wife went to the police station May 26 and informed officers what he was doing.

“I thought it was the right thing to do, telling them that I was growing cannabis at my home as medication,” he said. “But since I did that, it’s all gone downhill.”

The next day, two officers went to his home. After Jones invited them in to see his plants, the officers arrested Jones and took him to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on suspicion of felony marijuana cultivation.

He was released about 12 hours later on his own recognizance and will be arraigned Wednesday at the Ventura County Courthouse.

Although the practicalities of Proposition 215 are still being interpreted by the courts, the initiative’s wording states that criminal statutes “shall not apply to a patient, or to patient’s primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician.”

Despite Jones’ prescription and official card that identifies him a user of medicinal marijuana, authorities maintain that in this instance he does not qualify for the exemption.

“There are a lot of questionable issues involved with this particular case and one of those deals with quantity,” Rein said. “The law allows for personal use and we understand that, but, again, there are some questions in that regard.”

Jones’ attorney, Stanley Arky, also represents Andrea Nagy, who opened the county’s first cannabis buyers’ club in Thousand Oaks last year. He accused police of flouting the law.

“If you can’t grow your own and you can’t purchase it, how is law enforcement enforcing Prop. 215?” Arky asked rhetorically.

If the case is brought to court, it may provide another test of a law that already has proved to be particularly prickly.

Authorities, for instance, are caught between conflicting state and federal laws regarding possession, use and cultivation of marijuana.

Stating that under carefully prescribed circumstances marijuana is legal, Proposition 215 contrasts sharply with federal laws that classify the drug as dangerous and prescribe stiff penalties for possession, use and cultivation.

“Some laws are pretty cut and dried, but this one is open for interpretation and that has led to some of the confusion and cloudiness,” said Rein, of the Simi Valley police. “All of these cases now fall into that gray area, so we have to take them one at a time.”

Most recently, the issue of medicinal use of marijuana has focused on buyers’ clubs like the ones in San Francisco and the one that operated in Thousand Oaks until authorities closed it in February.

The issues in those cases revolved around the legality of selling a controlled substance to qualified patients publicly out of storefronts.

Unlike these disputes, the Jones case goes to the very heart of Proposition 215: What protections do qualified patients have to grow their own marijuana?

For Arky, the answer is clear.

“What we have here is a patient who was arrested after he went to the police to inform them in an effort to comply with the law. . . . What we need to keep in perspective is that he is a patient who has been denied treatment.”