Arizona: Medical Marijuana Patients Post Ads For Marijuana On Craigslist

Jacob Redmond

Well-Known Member
Go on Craigslist and search for marijuana, and you'll likely come across quite a few posts advertising for "patient-to-patient" exchanges or delivery of the drug.

The ads will ask for other medical marijuana patients only and, often, they'll ask for a "donation" fee.

The ABC15 Investigators looked at dozens of ads like this. One medical marijuana patient who said he's been posting ads for a few months agreed to talk to us.

"The purpose of these ads is to get yourself out there," he said, "to get known." He said it's so that he and other medical marijuana patients can try different types of medical marijuana and meet each other. He described it as a community of medical marijuana patients.

And, he said, he always asks for a medical marijuana card from whoever answers his ad. He asks for a donation fee for his marijuana, he said, but he maintains he is not selling it, which is illegal under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) unless it's by a licensed dispensary.

"Really, it a trade, compared to a sale," he said. "The money is involved whenever each one of us knows how far we have to come and what we have to go through to get there."

It's an argument Phoenix Police Lieutenant Darrel Viner doesn't buy. He leads the department's Drug Enforcement Bureau and his team of undercover officers enforce the state laws against the illegal sale of marijuana.

"They're selling drugs," he said. "It's not different than if, back in the day, you drive down the street and somebody was selling drugs on the street corner."

And, he said calling the money exchanged a donation, doesn't help either.

"That donation, 100 percent of the time that I've had interaction with that [it] has been for the exact street value of what that marijuana actually is," he said. "So, it's essentially a sale."

According to the AMMA, medical marijuana patients can share marijuana with each other, but, "Nothing of value can be exchanged for the sharing of medical marijuana," as Viner put it.

Caregivers, registered with the state Department of Health, can give medical marijuana to up to five patients.

The ABC15 Investigators reviewed multiple cases prosecuted by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in which undercover officers answer craigslist ads like these, arrange to meet with the patient who posted them, and then pay the donation fee for the marijuana.

In almost every case we reviewed, the patients who were eventually arrested said they had no idea what they were doing was illegal.

Many of the people charged in those cases, most of them medical marijuana patients themselves, received sentences of probation. But, others ended up serving prison time, usually depending upon whether or not they had prior convictions.

In most cases, the defendants ended up with felonies on their records.

Scottsdale defense attorney Craig Rosenstein has defended clients in cases like this and calls it, "the silliest sting ever."

Marijuana, he said, is a commodity. "So, just like pharmaceutical companies don't just give away pills, people who are growing marijuana don't generally give away something that has value, regardless of how benevolent their hearts are," he said.

He called this a technicality. "The expectation that it should just be given to people for free is a little bit silly," according to Rosenstein.

Enforcement of this, he said, is politically driven and it's turning people who were just trying to help others into criminals.

"These are not drug dealers that people think of; this is not an episode of 'The Wire,'" he said. "So, the reality really becomes, what are we really doing to people?" he asked.

Stings against patient-to-patient sales of marijuana are something that worries the medical marijuana patient we met with every day, he said.

He also said he's not sure if what he's doing is legal or not. "It seems to be a gray area between us all," he said of himself and other medical marijuana patients he knows.

But, to him, the bottom line is that he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery called cases like these "patient to criminal." He told ABC15, if patients or dispensaries are operating within the law, they're not subject to investigation.

"But, if you operated outside of those boundaries, exemptions, you are subject to investigation, arrest and prosecution," he said. "And when those cases come in, we've been charging them."

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News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Medial marijuana patients post ads for pot on Craigslist, claim ?gray area? in the law - ABC15 Arizona
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