rockymtnbuds
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- 18
PRAYING FOR YOU KEN!!
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com...stc-pokin0.txt
Edit: Corrected Link
POKIN AROUND: A 'dangerous proposition'
By Steve Pokin
I'm not sure what's in store for Kenneth Wells. I suspect it's prison, but I hope not.
Ken called me recently to talk about his criminal case. He told me it's a "medical marijuana" matter. Firefighters discovered his "grow room" and stash of marijuana plants while Ken, his wife and their granddaughter watched his house burn down Jan. 16, 2008.
At some point that night a sheriff's deputy arrived. Ken lives on Pond Hollow Drive in unincorporated St. Charles County, near St. Peters. A burning candle caused the fire.
Ken, 54, has epilepsy and other neurologic problems stemming from a 1983 stroke, including pain in his left hand. The stroke occurred while surgeons removed a brain aneurysm.
Marijuana has drastically reduced his seizures, he says, as well as the pain, as well as the negative side-effects of the anti-convulsion medications he takes.
The side effects include nausea, depression, headaches, dry mouth and tiredness. Without marijuana, he says, the meds would zonk him out to where he'd sleep 14 hours a day.
"I would be sleeping much of my life away," he says.
I asked Ken if he was sure he wanted to talk to me. You see, there is no Missouri law that allows the medical use of marijuana, no matter how much people might think it helps with the pain of cancer, the nausea of chemotherapy, ailments like epilepsy or the chronic pain, let's say, of a broken back.
I told Ken that even if I were to write a compassionate story of why he grows and uses marijuana, the bottom line is that he'd be telling me and you and prosecutors that he broke the law.
The stakes are high. If convicted, Ken faces five to 15 years in prison.
Ken says he has no criminal record. I couldn't find one on Casenet, the state court website that covers Missouri, where Ken has lived his entire life. Jack Banas, prosecuting attorney for St. Charles County, says Ken is charged with growing marijuana and there is no evidence he was selling or distributing it.
Banas told me he's puzzled Ken seems willing to risk a trial.
"It certainly is not a good idea to go to trial with a defense that is not a genuine defense," Banas says. "That is a pretty dangerous proposition."
Ken says he waited too long to say yes to a plea deal that would have included six months of house arrest and five years of probation. That deal later became six months in the county jail and five years probation. At the completion of probation the conviction would be erased. Ken declined. If he pleads guilty, he says, he loses his right to appeal.
Ken says he called me to raise public awareness about the issue and that, in his view, the medical use of marijuana is a godsend for people who cannot otherwise find relief from pain and seizures.
He has not grown marijuana since the fire, when his equipment, including grow lights, was seized, he says. He'd been growing his own for six years. He declined to say if he still smokes marijuana.
Thirteen states allow the medical use of marijuana if prescribed by a doctor for severe pain or serious medical conditions. The most recent to do so is Michigan.
A medical marijuana bill was passed last month in the Illinois Senate. It was sponsored in the Senate by William Haine, D-Alton, a former Madison County state's attorney. The House sponsor is Lou Lang, D-Skokie. As of now, Lang said Thursday, he doesn't have the votes in the House. But momentum is building, and the session doesn't end until January 2011.
"I believe I will pass this," he says. "I just don't know when."
For several years there have been medical marijuana bills introduced in the Missouri General Assembly, and each has had a Democratic sponsor, says Dan Viets, Missouri coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Typically, these bills die early because they don't get assigned to committee, Viets says, and there's never been a Republican lawmaker willing to serve as even a co-sponsor.
Missouri's Western Court of Appeals has upheld a trial judge's decision to not let jurors consider a "justification" defense in a medical marijuana criminal case, he says. A justification defense, basically, is the argument that in certain grave circumstances an otherwise illegal act becomes legal. Breaking into a home, for example, to save a family from a house fire.
Ken's trial date is Sept. 1. His lawyer, Wayne Schoeneberg of St. Peters, tried to suppress Ken's statements to police the night of the fire. He lost. He tried to quash the search warrant used to discover the marijuana. He lost that one, too. If Ken is convicted, there will be an appeal, Schoeneberg says.
"I think our laws in Missouri and probably nationally are pretty antiquated," Schoeneberg says. "I am amazed that we spend all this money chasing weed around. But if it all went away my income would drop precipitously."
Schoeneberg, 62, says his own mother smoked marijuana - in Missouri in 1980 - during the worst of her cancer chemotherapy. The disease killed her.
"A lot of this stuff is subjective," Schoeneberg says. "There are people who go to faith healers who believe they are healed. There are those who go to highly trained professional people and believe they are healed. And there are those who go to both and get no relief."
At trial, there's the possibility of a justification defense, Schoeneberg says, as well as "jury nullification." That's when a jury decides: Damn the law and the promises we made to follow it! We're doing what we believe is right and in the best interests of society!
"And we all know that juries do that from time to time," Schoeneberg says.
All I can say is Ken must be committed. Because I'm not sure I'd roll the dice on "from time to time."
Steve Pokin is a columnist for the Suburban Journals of St. Charles County. He can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 636-946-6111, ext. 239. An audio version of the column is on the Journal Web site, under videos, at suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/stcharles.
I encourage everyone to copy this and email it to the White House and the Missouri Governor. There is strength in numbers.
www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
governor.mo.gov/
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com...stc-pokin0.txt
Edit: Corrected Link
POKIN AROUND: A 'dangerous proposition'
By Steve Pokin
I'm not sure what's in store for Kenneth Wells. I suspect it's prison, but I hope not.
Ken called me recently to talk about his criminal case. He told me it's a "medical marijuana" matter. Firefighters discovered his "grow room" and stash of marijuana plants while Ken, his wife and their granddaughter watched his house burn down Jan. 16, 2008.
At some point that night a sheriff's deputy arrived. Ken lives on Pond Hollow Drive in unincorporated St. Charles County, near St. Peters. A burning candle caused the fire.
Ken, 54, has epilepsy and other neurologic problems stemming from a 1983 stroke, including pain in his left hand. The stroke occurred while surgeons removed a brain aneurysm.
Marijuana has drastically reduced his seizures, he says, as well as the pain, as well as the negative side-effects of the anti-convulsion medications he takes.
The side effects include nausea, depression, headaches, dry mouth and tiredness. Without marijuana, he says, the meds would zonk him out to where he'd sleep 14 hours a day.
"I would be sleeping much of my life away," he says.
I asked Ken if he was sure he wanted to talk to me. You see, there is no Missouri law that allows the medical use of marijuana, no matter how much people might think it helps with the pain of cancer, the nausea of chemotherapy, ailments like epilepsy or the chronic pain, let's say, of a broken back.
I told Ken that even if I were to write a compassionate story of why he grows and uses marijuana, the bottom line is that he'd be telling me and you and prosecutors that he broke the law.
The stakes are high. If convicted, Ken faces five to 15 years in prison.
Ken says he has no criminal record. I couldn't find one on Casenet, the state court website that covers Missouri, where Ken has lived his entire life. Jack Banas, prosecuting attorney for St. Charles County, says Ken is charged with growing marijuana and there is no evidence he was selling or distributing it.
Banas told me he's puzzled Ken seems willing to risk a trial.
"It certainly is not a good idea to go to trial with a defense that is not a genuine defense," Banas says. "That is a pretty dangerous proposition."
Ken says he waited too long to say yes to a plea deal that would have included six months of house arrest and five years of probation. That deal later became six months in the county jail and five years probation. At the completion of probation the conviction would be erased. Ken declined. If he pleads guilty, he says, he loses his right to appeal.
Ken says he called me to raise public awareness about the issue and that, in his view, the medical use of marijuana is a godsend for people who cannot otherwise find relief from pain and seizures.
He has not grown marijuana since the fire, when his equipment, including grow lights, was seized, he says. He'd been growing his own for six years. He declined to say if he still smokes marijuana.
Thirteen states allow the medical use of marijuana if prescribed by a doctor for severe pain or serious medical conditions. The most recent to do so is Michigan.
A medical marijuana bill was passed last month in the Illinois Senate. It was sponsored in the Senate by William Haine, D-Alton, a former Madison County state's attorney. The House sponsor is Lou Lang, D-Skokie. As of now, Lang said Thursday, he doesn't have the votes in the House. But momentum is building, and the session doesn't end until January 2011.
"I believe I will pass this," he says. "I just don't know when."
For several years there have been medical marijuana bills introduced in the Missouri General Assembly, and each has had a Democratic sponsor, says Dan Viets, Missouri coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Typically, these bills die early because they don't get assigned to committee, Viets says, and there's never been a Republican lawmaker willing to serve as even a co-sponsor.
Missouri's Western Court of Appeals has upheld a trial judge's decision to not let jurors consider a "justification" defense in a medical marijuana criminal case, he says. A justification defense, basically, is the argument that in certain grave circumstances an otherwise illegal act becomes legal. Breaking into a home, for example, to save a family from a house fire.
Ken's trial date is Sept. 1. His lawyer, Wayne Schoeneberg of St. Peters, tried to suppress Ken's statements to police the night of the fire. He lost. He tried to quash the search warrant used to discover the marijuana. He lost that one, too. If Ken is convicted, there will be an appeal, Schoeneberg says.
"I think our laws in Missouri and probably nationally are pretty antiquated," Schoeneberg says. "I am amazed that we spend all this money chasing weed around. But if it all went away my income would drop precipitously."
Schoeneberg, 62, says his own mother smoked marijuana - in Missouri in 1980 - during the worst of her cancer chemotherapy. The disease killed her.
"A lot of this stuff is subjective," Schoeneberg says. "There are people who go to faith healers who believe they are healed. There are those who go to highly trained professional people and believe they are healed. And there are those who go to both and get no relief."
At trial, there's the possibility of a justification defense, Schoeneberg says, as well as "jury nullification." That's when a jury decides: Damn the law and the promises we made to follow it! We're doing what we believe is right and in the best interests of society!
"And we all know that juries do that from time to time," Schoeneberg says.
All I can say is Ken must be committed. Because I'm not sure I'd roll the dice on "from time to time."
Steve Pokin is a columnist for the Suburban Journals of St. Charles County. He can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 636-946-6111, ext. 239. An audio version of the column is on the Journal Web site, under videos, at suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/stcharles.
I encourage everyone to copy this and email it to the White House and the Missouri Governor. There is strength in numbers.
www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
governor.mo.gov/
