Jacob Bell
New Member
Another Rogue Valley medical marijuana garden has been uprooted by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the third such raid in Jackson County in the past three weeks.
DEA agents could be seen Friday tearing out about 120 pot plants with an excavator and loading them into at least two large dump trucks at 12345 Table Rock Road, about two miles south of Highway 238, throughout the six-hour raid.
Lori Duckworth, executive director of the Southern Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (SONORML), who was at the scene, said the marijuana garden was compliant with Oregon's medical marijuana laws. The property was a dozen plants under its limit given the number of Oregon Medical Marijuana Program cardholders who were registered at the property, she said.
Cliff Ruhland, who owns the property and tends the garden, said he was put in handcuffs for several hours while the DEA pulled the plants.
Ruhland said the garden contained enough plants for approximately 22 patients. He said he stayed within the six-plants-per-patient limit under Oregon law.
"They just came in, pulled them up and drove away," Ruhland said. "We had begun harvesting. There was some drying."
Ruhland said agents took computers and paperwork from his home. The paperwork was receipts for his gardening materials. In addition, the agents took his tax records.
"I record all of my expenses and taxes," he said. "I do everything as legally as I can."
The recent series of DEA raids has thrown the local medical marijuana community into a near panic, Ruhland said.
"I have patients who have left their medicine to mold," he said. "They are too scared to come and get what's legally theirs under state law."
Ruhland said he will comb through the ruins of his garden and pick up buds left on the ground.
"I am going to collect as much as I can to give away to patients," he said.
A single Jackson County sheriff's deputy was stationed at the driveway, preventing anyone from going up to the house, a manufactured home. That was the sheriff department's only role in the raid, said Jackson County sheriff's spokeswoman Andrea Carlson.
Some medical marijuana patients, who had heard about the raid, gathered outside the property's front gate and yelled at passing DEA agents and dump trucks full of their medicine being hauled away.
"This is just wrong, it's wrong!" said Dawn Repman, 43, of Talent, as one loaded dump truck turned out of the property. "That is people's medicine. I just don't understand how they can keep doing this."
Repman, an OMMP cardholder, had her legal limit of six plants torn up by the DEA on Oct. 5, when it raided Brian's Green Thumb Farm on East Gregory Road. Repman's six plants were a sliver of the nearly 400 plants carted away that day.
She said she has smoked medical marijuana for the past year to treat chronic nausea caused by a kidney ailment.
SONORML is planning a protest in front of its office at 322 W. Sixth St., Medford, on Oct. 19. The protest will start at noon, Duckworth said.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: mailtribune.com
Author: Sam Wheeler, Chris Conrad
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: Dow Jones Local Media Group, Inc.
Website: DEA rips out more pot plants
DEA agents could be seen Friday tearing out about 120 pot plants with an excavator and loading them into at least two large dump trucks at 12345 Table Rock Road, about two miles south of Highway 238, throughout the six-hour raid.
Lori Duckworth, executive director of the Southern Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (SONORML), who was at the scene, said the marijuana garden was compliant with Oregon's medical marijuana laws. The property was a dozen plants under its limit given the number of Oregon Medical Marijuana Program cardholders who were registered at the property, she said.
Cliff Ruhland, who owns the property and tends the garden, said he was put in handcuffs for several hours while the DEA pulled the plants.
Ruhland said the garden contained enough plants for approximately 22 patients. He said he stayed within the six-plants-per-patient limit under Oregon law.
"They just came in, pulled them up and drove away," Ruhland said. "We had begun harvesting. There was some drying."
Ruhland said agents took computers and paperwork from his home. The paperwork was receipts for his gardening materials. In addition, the agents took his tax records.
"I record all of my expenses and taxes," he said. "I do everything as legally as I can."
The recent series of DEA raids has thrown the local medical marijuana community into a near panic, Ruhland said.
"I have patients who have left their medicine to mold," he said. "They are too scared to come and get what's legally theirs under state law."
Ruhland said he will comb through the ruins of his garden and pick up buds left on the ground.
"I am going to collect as much as I can to give away to patients," he said.
A single Jackson County sheriff's deputy was stationed at the driveway, preventing anyone from going up to the house, a manufactured home. That was the sheriff department's only role in the raid, said Jackson County sheriff's spokeswoman Andrea Carlson.
Some medical marijuana patients, who had heard about the raid, gathered outside the property's front gate and yelled at passing DEA agents and dump trucks full of their medicine being hauled away.
"This is just wrong, it's wrong!" said Dawn Repman, 43, of Talent, as one loaded dump truck turned out of the property. "That is people's medicine. I just don't understand how they can keep doing this."
Repman, an OMMP cardholder, had her legal limit of six plants torn up by the DEA on Oct. 5, when it raided Brian's Green Thumb Farm on East Gregory Road. Repman's six plants were a sliver of the nearly 400 plants carted away that day.
She said she has smoked medical marijuana for the past year to treat chronic nausea caused by a kidney ailment.
SONORML is planning a protest in front of its office at 322 W. Sixth St., Medford, on Oct. 19. The protest will start at noon, Duckworth said.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: mailtribune.com
Author: Sam Wheeler, Chris Conrad
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: Dow Jones Local Media Group, Inc.
Website: DEA rips out more pot plants
