He woke up nightly in fear. His wife was scared awake. His three daughters worried. He sought help, but nothing solved his suffering. The VA hospital gave him pills. He talked to doctors and psychiatrists. He was about to give up on life all together.
And then, he took a puff.
“I was a zombie. I was scared to death. I would wake up sweating, shaking,” the 69-year-old Tulare man said. “When I tried marijuana, it all went away. I marched down to the VA and told them they could have their pills. I was cured.”
The veteran’s violent dreams ended. He’s had two nightmares in 30 years. He attributes his success in combating PTSD to marijuana. Wilhelm is one of more than 800,000 medical marijuana patients in California. That total has jumped more than 200,000 in less than two years.
Of those, just 85,000 have a state-authorized medical marijuana card. Fewer than 400 cards have been issued to Tulare County residents. Numbers suggest the others have a medical recommendation, approved by the doctor, but not the state’s Department of Public Health.
Technically, a recommendation is valid in California but easily obtained and often faked. A card is verifiable by law enforcement through a unique number on each card.
Patients range from adolescents to adults.
Proponents of loosening marijuana laws say the trend shows people have become more accepting. Nationwide, there are more than 100 million patients.
“It’s coming to the surface. It was all underground before. Now, everybody and their mother is smoking marijuana, literally,” said Doug Hurt, a local civil and defense attorney. “People don’t want to go to a drug dealer. They want to go to a dispensary that is clean and safe.”
Mary Jane comes with limits
Hurt, who represents CannaCanHelp, a Goshen-based dispensary and the largest in the Valley, said keeping marijuana illegal will only keep cartels and drug dealers running the show.
The solution, he says, legalize it. Regulate it. And be transparent.
“Prohibition doesn’t work. Everyone is still smoking marijuana. All prohibition does is puts people in the system. They become criminals,” Hurt said. “If you drive people underground, marijuana becomes a gateway drug. When you’re open about it, and people are talking, that’s the way to go.”
CannaCanHelp, owned and operated by Tammy Murray and managed by Wes Hardin, has become the go-to spot for many marijuana users. The shop, just one of two legally operating in the county, has a client base of more than 10,000 people.
Murray said they’ve complied with every ordinance and open the doors freely to code enforcement. Others don’t.
Supervisor Phil Cox says just two businesses have valid permits to operate a dispensary in Tulare County. However, an online marijuana locator, shows seven – five of which are mobile. Mobile dispensaries are illegal.
If marijuana is legalized, it’s likely mobile dispensaries would remain illegal.
Deputies with the county’s STEP team are busy chasing down massive marijuana grow sites linked to Mexican cartels. They leave the ordinance violations to code enforcement, which has one officer dedicated to marijuana.
Mike Grove, county spokesman Eric Coyne and code enforcement officials with Resource Management Agency declined comment for this story.
But Cox, who fears legalizing marijuana would have negative impacts on the county, said the county is looking closely at the issue. They’ve teamed with Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and others to “dissect” the nearly two dozen ballot measures that involve marijuana, so the county is prepared.
“We have been bombarded with people who stop by to pick up a permit to sell,” Cox said. “We aren’t issuing them.”
The county delayed making a decision until a ballot measure is decided upon and approved, or not.
If voters strike down legalizing marijuana, the responsibility will fall back on the county to figure it out. If voters approve it, rules and regulations can start directing the way people smoke, sell and grow.
Counties may still be able to opt out, keeping marijuana illegal.
STEP up
Sheriff’s Sgt. Gabe Macias runs a crew of 10 detectives dedicated to eradicating illegal marijuana grow sites. What was typically a March through October enforcement is now 365 days a year.
Capt. Tom Sigley, who also oversaw the STEP team, said 265,000 plants were eradicated last year.
Dozens of arrests were made and guns seized.
He sees the main issue of legalizing marijuana as how to prevent California from becoming the main distributor to other parts of the country.
What’s grown and sold here for $1,000 can fetch five times that on the east coast, Hurt said.
Sigley said, without a universal, federal law or legalization, counties are left to eradicate massive grow sites that aren’t being used for medical needs and enforce the rules.
“Most of these grow sites are using multiple recommendations from people who have no idea.
Legalizing it will just exacerbate the problem,” Sigley said. “Unless there’s a universal law, we will have the same problems we have now.”
Hurt says law enforcement put too strong an emphasis on fighting marijuana, instead of “real” drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. In retrospect, he says, police don’t have the same issue with marijuana as they do with other substances.
“Police would rather respond to a pot party than a drunken redneck party where alcohol is going to lead to violence,” Hurt said. “If you regulate it correctly, there’s an advantage.”
Cox and Sigley, who agree on regulation, say their issue is with the cartels, violence linked to people trying to steal plants and people who aren’t following the limits on the number of plants or where they’re grown.
For 16 plants, which produce at least one pound of marijuana each, it would take smoking one joint, every hour, every day, for 365 days, to justify needing 16 plants.
“There’s no conceivable way of ingesting that many joints,” Sigley said.
The medical needs, he said, are a different story.
“We aren’t going after people who are legitimately using it to treat a condition,” the captain said. “We went to a woman’s house. She opened the door with a scarf around her head. She was obviously undergoing chemotherapy. She admitted smoking marijuana. She had five or six plants. We turned around and walked out.”
Edible advantages
For some, smoking isn’t an option for their medical needs. CannaCanHelp’s client base reaches children and adults who can’t smoke, either because of age or lung issues.
Murray and Hardin, up until recently, pointed those clients to edibles. The baked goods come in all kinds of forms, from cookies and candy to popcorn and butter. Twenty percent of their clients preferred edibles, Murray said, until the county halted sales last month.
“It makes you infuriated at the county’s lack of empathy for our patients,” Murray said. “We are the big kid’s on the block and the county is narrowing safe access to medicine for our patients.”
Hardin, who has managed the Goshen shop for several years, says he only bought edibles from certified kitchens and products that were labeled properly.
About 300 people have written letters to the Board of Supervisors in support of bringing edibles back to the CannaCanHelp shelves, but so far the county’s legal team has refused to meet with Hurt or Murray.
“You have the guy down the street selling spiked Yoohoo and eye drops, but we are the ones following the rules and being transparent and being penalized, along with our patients,” Hardin said. “It’s not our choice.”
County officials and local law enforcement believe cooking with marijuana oil, some of which has had the THC removed to allow for safer use by children with epilepsy, can be dangerous.
THC is the active drug in marijuana that gets people high.
Earlier this year, seven Mt. Whitney High School students were rushed to the hospital after a bad batch of brownies laced with marijuana. Highly potent butter made from the oils of the marijuana plant can have hallucinogenic effects.
But baked and used properly, Hardin says, edibles can increase the quality of life for patients who suffer from COPD, epilepsy, cancer and anorexia. Baked goods with THC can last twice as long as smoking. Edibles with THC removed can still have the same medical benefits without the high.
For patients, such as Wilhelm and thousands of others, marijuana, whether it’s edibles or straight from a pipe, can make life better.
For law enforcement, it’s a constant battle.
Voters will likely get the chance to help bring balance to the table.
“You make it illegal, push it underground and pretend you have a solution. But you put people in a bad situation, because it’s still being done,” Hurt said. “Regulate, regulate, regulate.”
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