Personal Injury and Criminal Defense Legal Blog

King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office Declines Charging Excessive Medical Marijuana Grow

The King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg declined to file criminal charges against a former Seattle man who police said had more plants at his community medical-marijuana garden than state law allows.

Mark Spohn called Seattle police on May 26 after four armed men, posing as FBI agents, entered his house and stole some of the recently harvested marijuana plants growing at his home garden. Seattle police allege they discovered more than 100 additional plants, which he was growing for himself and other authorized medical-marijuana patients, according to court paperwork. Police seized the bulk of what they found, leaving 15 plants, the state Department of Health’s limit for an individual medical-marijuana patient. Satterberg said there is no specific state law when it comes to community gardens. The law neither permits nor prohibits a collective [medical marijuana] operation,” Satterberg said, adding that he is not “obligated to prosecute people because they have a few plants too many.”

According to the memo announcing the prosecutor’s decision to not file charges, the law doesn’t “explicitly address how marijuana should be manufactured by a provider in a legal manner or how it should be distributed to patients.” “Chief among these ambiguities is the question of whether or not an authorized provider of marijuana is allowed to provide for more than one patient over a period of time,” the memo says. “The statute is simply unclear as to whether such activity is prohibited or not.” Satterberg went on to say his decision in Mr. Spohn’s case doesn’t mean anyone running an allegedly excessive medical-marijuana community garden will avoid prosecution. He said that each case will be reviewed individually; although in the past seven years, the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office has had more than three dozen similar cases referred to his office and has declined charges in all of them. “I don’t want to prosecute sick people,” Satterberg said. “If this is a legitimate medicine we should treat it like a legitimate medicine. It seems that if patients want to band together and share their time and authorizations they should be allowed to do that.”

In 2008, the Department of Health set supply limit guidelines for medical marijuana at 24 ounces of usable marijuana plus 15 plants per person. Those who need more marijuana to manage their pain, according to the Department of Health, would have to prove they need it — though how they would do that remains unclear. The Department of Health says that “a designated provider must be at least 18 years old and must be designated in writing by the qualifying patient.” It also says a designated provider “can only be a provider for one patient at any one time.”

Satterberg said that marijuana possession is a low-ranking offense according to state felony guidelines, three convictions could leave a defendant spending less than six months in jail. Satterberg, whose office has 55 open murder cases, says he has “more important things do” than charge marijuana-possession cases. Seattle’s new City Attorney Pete Holmes has stopped charging people with misdemeanor pot possession, which is less than 40 grams.

Source: Seattle Times