In late July, Melissa Macourek came home to find her household in shambles. It was like something out of a bad detective novel - door broken down, personal belongings strewn everywhere, children's' art crumpled and buried underneath contents of ransacked drawers, cats terrified, medication spilled out on the floor. Macourek, a Pilates instructor, author, minister, community volunteer and business owner, had been on a homeschool camping trip with her 6-year-old daughter. As she picked through her belongings, she found a search warrant from the Tacoma Police Department. A few phone calls later, Macourek learned her home wasn't the only one ransacked. Her other home, which she rents to friend Justin Prince, had been raided too. Prince, the owner of Tacoma Hemp Company, was arrested and charged with unlawful delivery of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance. The particular controlled substance was marijuana, which Prince and others at Tacoma Hemp Company had allegedly sold to undercover police officers. The officers, according to court documents, had gained access to Tacoma Hemp Company using forged documents, made several purchases and helped set in motion the raid of Tacoma Hemp Company and two nearby homes - one occupied by Prince, and the other occupied by Macourek. Since then, two others involved with Tacoma Hemp Company, along with Prince, have been charged with unlawfully delivery of a controlled substance, and also face charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance.

Macourek, meanwhile, is still trying to figure out why her home was turned upside down.

"I worry what would've happened to my daughter and I had we been here on a normal homeschooling day. My entire family has suffered anxiety from this situation since it happened," she says. "I am left to fix my doors, calm my daughter, support my husband and clean up the other property Justin Prince was renting from the damage the TPD did. We are without savings to fund repairs, so we are struggling to figure out how to do this."

Macourek is not alone. She is among an untold number of people whose lives have been thrown into chaos as police, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, stoners, legislators, doctors and medical marijuana patients struggle to make sense of a law passed more than a decade ago. RCW 69.51A, Washington's so-called medical marijuana law, has been revised and updated, debated, defined and redefined. Washington is home to thousands of patients, hundreds of doctors and dozens of clinics and dispensaries dedicated to living what they consider to be the intent of Washington voters. We have law enforcement keeping an eye on them, and occasionally busting those who step outside the bounds of law. We have dealers, growers and others using medical marijuana as a front for their own operations.  And we have activists using medical marijuana as a platform to promote and experiment with full-on legalization and regulation of marijuana.

And - most importantly - we have the medical marijuana patients; people who have a recognizable medical need for marijuana; people who simultaneously find hope and dismay in Washington's medical marijuana provisions; people like Macourek, who smokes marijuana and ingests it as a tincture to dull the pain of headaches she describes as feeling "like someone is putting a really large knife in the left side of my head." Macourek explains when she was very young she had a brain tumor removed along with a fair-sized chunk of skull. The skull fragment was replaced with mesh that eventually fused with bone as she healed.

"I've never had more than a couple of days without a headache as long as I've lived," she says. "(Some) days they are so bad I can't hardly do anything other than hold my head and cry."

According to Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist, people like Macourek - people with a demonstrable and codified medical need - will not be prosecuted in Pierce County, as long as they "play by the rules."

There's just one problem. The rules, by all accounts, don't make any sense.

The letter of the law

We were forerunners, even back then. Or at the very least progressive members of the lead pack. In 1998, 12 years ago in November, 59 percent of Washington's voters approved Initiative 692, aka  "The Medical Use of Marijuana Act". Chemo patients, recreational pot smokers, liberal politicians and cops not addicted to a drug war budget all cheered in unison. Since 1996, 12 states have chosen similarly, putting medical marijuana legislation on the books one way or another, through voter initiatives or legislative bills. In Washington, Initiative 692, an Initiative to the People, was supposed to mean patients with legitimate medical needs, with the recommendation of their medical provider, would be able to use marijuana for its proven medical benefits - benefits that even 12 years ago were widely accepted both medically and culturally.

Or at least that was the intention.

See, the thing about Washington's Medical Use of Marijuana Act is it's fucked. There's no other way to put it.

For a variety of reasons, some associated with the minutiae of the political machine but most related to fear of federal pot laws and uncharted territory, Washington's medical marijuana law is - at best - half a law. Many experts would probably estimate lower.

"(Washington's medical marijuana law) was well-intentioned," says King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg's chief of staff, Ian Goodhew, "but it could use a lot of work."

Initiative 692 removed state level criminal penalties for the use, possession and cultivation of marijuana by patients who have been recommended the drug by a healthcare professional. These patients are required to meet specific requirements (i.e., they have to be seriously sick). Initiative 692 made patients with cancer, HIV or AIDS, cachexia, epilepsy, glaucoma, intolerable pain, multiple sclerosis and other terminal or debilitating medical conditions eligible to use, possess or cultivate marijuana with a doctor's consent, as long as they carried "valid documentation" of their doctor's recommendation. It became legal for patients to possess a 60-day supply of medical marijuana, though what exactly constituted a 60-day supply wouldn't be defined for nearly 10 years. Today (after clarification from 2007's Senate Bill 6032) a sixty-day supply constitutes 24 ounces of useable marijuana and 15 plants. Legally, there is room for variance. A patient who possesses larger quantities can technically do so if the need can be proven. As you might imagine given the still substantial gray area, there's what might be called a "healthy debate" between medical marijuana advocates and law enforcement on this subject.

At the same time, Initiative 692 gave medical marijuana patients the right to select one "designated provider," or a person allowed by law to possess, cultivate and administer medical marijuana on one patient's behalf. The law stipulates a provider must be over the age of 18; designated in writing; is barred from personally using the patient's marijuana; and may be the designated provider for only one person at a time.

Finally, the law doesn't necessarily prevent law enforcement from arresting or prosecuting those found in possession of marijuana and its derivatives. It simply provides what's known as an "affirmative defense" to medical marijuana users or providers, which means they can use the law to defend themselves at trial. Legal experts trying to explain this ridiculousness to average citizens usually liken "affirmative defense" to self-defense - you can still get arrested and go to trial, but affirmative defense (as long as you prove you're a legitimate medical marijuana patient or provider) will get you off the hook. In theory.

So, it became legal to cultivate, possess and - if you're sick - use marijuana. Kind of.

The shortcomings

The problem - the big one - is that Washington's medical marijuana law doesn't address how patients or designated providers are supposed to GET their medicine. As it turns out, that's pretty important - especially since allowing sick patients access to marijuana was the entire purpose of the law, and the purpose Washington voters approved overwhelmingly. Sure, the law allows patients to cultivate marijuana.  But seeds and starter plants are still illegal to buy. More importantly, should the patient choose not to grow the marijuana themselves - usually because they're too sick or don't live in a situation conducive to cultivating marijuana (it's not easy) - the law provides absolutely no legal avenue for them to acquire it. Patients are allowed to possess it, but selling marijuana is still illegal for everyone.

"We passed a much weaker law than did California," says Philip Dawdy, co-founder of Sensible Washington, a political action group that supports both medical marijuana and the full legalization of pot. Dawdy says California's law, passed in 1996, protects growers, dispensaries, patient cooperatives and "all the above grown distribution," that needs to happen for a law like this to function.

"In this state they went for a much weaker initiative that just basically said, ‘Hey, if you have one of these qualifying conditions and you're deathly ill, you can either grow marijuana for yourself, or your designated caregiver can do it for you, but no one else,'" says Dawdy. "The ignorant assumption was marijuana was easy to grow."

From this legislative snafu has sprung both patient cooperative grows and what are known as dispensaries. Dispensaries are like pharmacies where medical marijuana patients can go to get their medicine. Traditionally, cooperative grows involve a number of patients pooling their resources, and (more importantly) the number of plants they are each allowed by law, to produce enough medical-grade marijuana for all involved. Both seem to be supported by the spirit of the state's medical marijuana law, yet both enjoy little to no protection under it, and now operate under constant fear that SWAT teams will bust down their doors. 

"Washington's medical marijuana law creates two classes of people in the state - those who can have it and those who cannot," Dan Satterberg wrote in a guest editorial for the News Tribune in April. Satterberg has instructed his office to make decisions based more on the spirit and intent of the law than its poorly chosen words.

If the purpose of Initiative 692, and thus the will of the people, was to provide the sick and dying the benefits offered by medical marijuana - and there's no doubt it was - it has oftentimes failed horribly. The failures of Washington's medical marijuana law were chronicled in a Washington State Department of Health 2008 report analyzing patient "access to an adequate, safe, consistent, and secure source" of medical marijuana. The report identified a number of key (and obvious) barriers, including: federal law, the lack of a legal source of medical marijuana, risk of arrest or prosecution, risk of violence or robbery, cost of supply, physical limitation, supply quality, housing issues and child safety concerns.

Specifically, the report noted:

"Washington's medical marijuana law does not provide a legal source for marijuana. This means patients and providers must break the law and risk their liberty and safety to get a supply."

"The medical marijuana law does not address dispensaries. It says designated providers may assist only ‘one patient at any one time.' This would seem to preclude the operating of dispensaries, which act as providers for multiple patients. However, a small number of dispensaries exist in the state."

"Similarly, the law does not explicitly address sharing marijuana among qualified patients. While the law specifies that providers can assist only one patient at a time, it does not say how many providers a patient may designate."

"Many patients told the department that the possibility of arrest and prosecution is a major obstacle to safe medical marijuana access. ... Many patients called for protection from arrest, not just prosecution."

"Physical limitations can prevent patient access to a consistent and adequate supply. Patients may be unable to fully take part in the medical use of marijuana due to physical ability, time, space, or location."

It's enough to make you wonder if there's anything this law does right.

Dispensaries ... or whatever they're called

"Voters have decided that medical marijuana should be legal.  The next step is to decide how to provide the medical marijuana in a safe and reasonable way," says Lindquist, who has been taking heat recently from some in the medical marijuana community for the bust at Tacoma Hemp Company.

On that, everyone seems to agree.

"RCW 69.51A  failed to give clarity to how medical marijuana was to be obtained," says Emiel Kandi, director of recently-opened C.O.B.R.A. Medical Group. "Many ill people are incapable of devoting the time necessary to cultivate medical grade marijuana.  They may have mobility issues or landlord issues. They may not have the requisite finances to purchase the specialized and often expensive equipment needed to grow marijuana.  Or, they are just too darn scared.  After years of  Reefer Madness, the "War on Drugs" and "Just say No" it's no wonder that people are scared.  The problem is that people are no longer scared of marijuana's effects. They‘re afraid of law enforcement. They need dispensaries."

Before it was busted, Tacoma Hemp Company was one of several dispensaries operating in Pierce County. Dispensary is a term borrowed from California, where dispensaries are legal. In Washington, most operators prefer the term "patient cooperative." None of those functioning in Washington operate as businesses in any strict sense. Most are opened as non-profit organizations.

That's another thing about Washington's law - it leaves enough room for interpretation that some clever folks have managed to open and operate what could loosely be defined as niche pharmacies. Seattle hosts several that have managed to operate for years without running into trouble with law enforcement.

None of the dispensaries in Tacoma operate in exactly the same way. Three have been hammered by law enforcement. Two have operators facing criminal prosecution. Club 420 was busted by a cooperative law enforcement agency known as WESTnet in early May. Christine Casey, Club 420's patient coordinator at the time of the raid (which was carried out at her house), has told the Seattle Weekly agents handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours, put a gun to his head, and seized allowance money from her 9-year-old daughter's Disney wallet. Club 420 has since reopened, and is operating under different protocol while its owners await trial.

Tacoma Hemp Company was taken down late last month. Its fate and future in Tacoma remains undecided. Both Club 420 and Tacoma Hemp Company were the targets of sophisticated police sting operations.

In the case of Tacoma Hemp Company, officers generated fake documentation, entered the cooperative and made purchases from Prince and two other operators.

"There are a lot of people who abuse it and just want to do it for financial gain," says Stringer. "That brings an undesirable element to a neighborhood. And that creates a problem we have to address."

Stringer is candid when he says that he "wouldn't fall off his chair" if state law allowed for dispensaries in the future. Meanwhile, the official stance of the police department's legal advisors is that dispensaries are illegal.

"We're not ogres," says Stringer. "But people keep looking to us, hoping that we'll say we're going to ignore it. But we can't say that."

 "We have more pressing issues," adds Stringer. "But once it starts to cause neighborhood problems, it's something we have to address."

Meanwhile, dispensaries do their best to stay open and serve a need that everyone seems to agree exists.

"The world has changed.  Times have changed.  Attitudes toward marijuana have changed.  Science has changed," says Kandi. "The Department of Justice has stated that using federal resources to investigate and prosecute medical marijuana patients and those who help them is not an appropriate use of federal tax dollars. Medical marijuana needs a structure.  Patients need to feel safe.  They want clean facilities where they can go to legally purchase their necessary medication without fear of street corner thugs, or jack-booted ones in ski masks."

Threatened by thugs who would rob them of their supply, most dispensaries are learning to take security seriously. Coincidentally, these potential occupational hazards are the same concerns law enforcement often cite when arguing against dispensaries popping up in neighborhoods: they can attract crime. Of course, so can a jewelry store or a bank. Taser-armed security personnel, bulletproof glass and reinforced entryways, meanwhile, are becoming necessary investments.

Equally threatened by law enforcement, all seem to continually work to update methods of safeguarding themselves against getting busted. After what happened to Tacoma Hemp Company, those that remain are most certainly going to find new ways to check and double check credentials of incoming patients. Other methods of legal ninjitsu include taking donations for medicine (rather than outright payment) to muddle any accusations that dispensaries are selling medical marijuana for profit. In other cases, patients are served one at a time, and asked to sign documents designating the dispensary as their chosen provider when they arrive, and discharging the dispensary as they leave, muddling any accusation that they are acting as provider to more than one person.

But no matter how tightly laced these facilities are, the threat of a crackdown remains. Those that are going down are not going down because they're providing to medical users, says Attorney Jay Berneburg of Tacoma.

"The dispensaries that are going down are going down for peripheral issues," says Berneburg. "I tell people that I can't guarantee that they'll be safe. But police and prosecutors won't go after one of these places if they're running it right. The cops are going in with bogus paperwork and people aren't checking it. If cops get in there and there's anything going on, you're in trouble. I think some of these guys are playing right into their hands."

Implicit in that statement is the stark realization that law enforcement seems to have a clear agenda - continuing the drug war. Berneburg says he doesn't agree with the agenda, but says would-be dispensary operators need to respect the fact that they are skating on thin ice.

"This is a political reaction to medical marijuana," says Berneburg. "What we're seeing is the muscle behind the political agenda."

For anyone who is considering opening a dispensary, and wants to avoid feeling the force of local muscle, Berneburg has simple advice: "This takes funding, respect for the law and sound business practice. Everything has to be by the numbers."

When it's not, he says, patients suffer. Berneburg suggests that law enforcement's war on drugs creates a lot of collateral damage. Aside from legal and illegal classifications for marijuana users, Berneburg adds a third class - a victim class. The victims are people like Macourek, caught  between experiments in medical cannabis distribution and experiments in enforcing an ill-defined law.

"People have to learn to keep these issues (medical and non-medical marijuana) separate," he says. "The big fear is that this is a pretext for legalization or something worse. But this is not a slippery slope. To view medical marijuana so narrowly is an issue. This isn't a wedge issue for these people (medical users). They're just sick and in pain."

C.O.B.R.A. Medical Group serves people with a range of ailments, and runs the tightest ship in town. If there is template for how to do this whole thing right, C.O.B.R.A. seems to be it.

"At C.O.B.R.A. we verify a patient in three ways," Kandi explains. "We verify the patient's identification with the Department of Licensing, we verify the doctor who issued the authorization to make sure they are real and have a valid license to practice and we verify the issuing group or company to see if they are in good standing with the secretary of state.  Until we receive written authorization from your doctor that we fax out each and every single time, we cannot, and will not, help you."

Kandi suggests anyone considering operating a dispensary should take it very, very seriously.

"If more people involved in medical marijuana took the ‘medical' part of it more seriously many of the problems that have occurred thus far could have been avoided," he says. "It comes down to one simple question.  Did you verify the patient, or not?  These establishments should be run with the same care that you would see in a doctor's office or pharmacy.  To do otherwise is folly. Dispensing any substance to a person who does not possess the requisite paperwork for the possession of that substance, be it medical marijuana or any other controlled substance, is illegal.  Period.  In the case of a pharmacy the door usually isn't kicked in but that's a discussion for another day."

Who's calling the shots?

What's easy to see is something's not working. When citizens like Melissa Macourek - upstanding by every account - have their door taken down by a SWAT team, their home trashed and their pets left for dead by cops serving a warrant related to a medical marijuana dispensary, it goes without saying the law isn't functioning as intended.

What's not as easy to ascertain is who is at fault.  The issues start with the law itself, and its glaring shortcomings. But from there, tracing the problems becomes more difficult.  Prosecutors like Lindquist and King County's Satterberg say they are left to interpret the half-assed law, and do the best they can to honor its spirit while enforcing existing marijuana laws.  Both Lindquist and Satterberg have said they're not interested in prosecuting legitimate medical marijuana users. Perhaps because King County is home to Seattle, or just less redneck in general, Satterberg's office has gone further to prove it by issuing memorandums to King County law enforcement agencies detailing his office's interpretation and intended tact as it relates to medical marijuana laws. Lindquist hasn't been forced to do as much, going only so far as to say he's not interested in prosecuting medical marijuana patients who are "playing by the rules," though the recent busts in town have some questioning his conviction, and what exactly "playing by the rules" even means.  Though the medical marijuana law's deficiencies have been well documented, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office seems less prepared than King County‘s to deal with the issues these deficiencies inevitably push to the forefront.  This is part of what's playing out before us.  It's new territory.

"Clarifying the rules would help police, prosecutors, patients and providers," says Lindquist.

But as any prosecutor's office will tell you, all they can do is deal with each case presented as fairly as possible - and the cases presented depend on local law enforcement.  Ultimately, police decide what to investigate, who to arrest and who to charge; and all of that happens before the prosecutor's office gets involved.  The goal, of course, should be a police force and prosecutor's office working on the same page. But that's not always the case.

Prosecutors like Satterberg and Lindquist (of the liberal ilk) seem to want nothing to do with medical marijuana cases, and perhaps privately wish patients would magically find a way to acquire medical marijuana that wouldn't force their offices into murky, politically-charged territory.  That doesn't seem likely to happen.  What's also not going to stop happening - unless we fix the law - is law enforcement being thrown headfirst into all the clutter medical marijuana laws create. It's a situation that rightfully causes plenty of unease in the medical marijuana community. 

Once the Tacoma Police Department fired up its investigation of Tacoma Hemp, by the mere nature of both law enforcement's and the Pierce County prosecutor's interpretation of our state's medical marijuana law, Tacoma Hemp was screwed. Of course, according to charging documents, undercover officers did successfully make medical marijuana buys, after forging documents. But what that actually means is debatable. Do the sales prove that Tacoma Hemp Company was a front for illegal pot sales, or does there simply need to be a uniform, accurate and supervised method of checking medical marijuana documentation?  That's difficult to determine. What's not difficult to determine is dispensaries are on shaky ground in Pierce County.

But what led to the investigation?  If we're to have faith in Lindquist, and believe Pierce County has no interest in prosecuting medical marijuana patients playing by the rules, how then are we to interpret the actions of TPD when it launches an undercover investigation into one of Tacoma's few medical marijuana dispensaries? The bust seems to be legitimized by their interpretation of the law, and appears backed up by forged documentation and undercover buys, but the bust also seems to fly in the face of the spirit of the law passed by Washington voters. Are police simply anti-medical marijuana?  Or are they just doing the best they can?

Some on the inside will tell you the dispensaries busted in Tacoma simply pushed the already tenuous situation a little too far.  TPD halfheartedly ignored operating dispensaries at first, and the pioneering wave of three or four Tacoma medical marijuana dispensaries that opened within the last year or so.  But over time the dispensaries became bolder and more public. Tacoma Hemp's Justin Prince was the organizer of Tacoma's first ever Hempfest earlier this year, for instance.  Some say higher profiles for dispensaries likely prompted TPD into action.  Since we know dispensaries are defined as illegal by the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office and police, there wasn't much good that could come after a police investigation into Tacoma Hemp was launched.  Round up some forged medical marijuana documentation, make a few undercover buys and you've got a case that's signed, sealed and delivered.

TPD's story of how the investigation into Tacoma Hemp started, and how Macourek's door came to meet a battering ram, aren't as simple.

According to TPD's Lt. Shawn Stringer, "The Tacoma Police Department was involved in the Tacoma Hemp Company investigation initiated by a complaint rather than us actively searching out marijuana dispensaries operating in the city."  Stringer says neighborhood complaints were brought forward during at least one public meeting to Sector Two community liaison officers, and these verbal complaints were then forwarded to Sector Two Lt. Dan Still. According to Stringer, it was these complaints from neighbors - alleging it appeared Tacoma Hemp was selling weed to non-medical users - that led to TPD's interest in Justin Prince and his operation.

"We have more pressing issues," adds Stringer. "But once it starts to cause neighborhood problems, it's something we have to address."

Also according to Stringer and Still, the complaints were verbal and never written down. That may seem strange, considering those complaints became the impetus for a major drug investigation, but it's something TPD suggests is fairly regular.

"Do you guys write everything down?" asks Stringer.

Whether the investigation was sparked by the complaints of neighbors or not isn't of the utmost importance. As the law currently stands, or perhaps more accurately how the law is now widely interpreted, TPD had every right to carry out an investigation and make arrests.

"The legal opinion of the City of Tacoma legal advisors and the Pierce County Prosecutor‘s Office is that medical marijuana dispensaries are not allowed under the law," says Stringer.  "It is really impossible to operate a dispensary under the Washington state law.  Many people confuse it with the California law which does provide for dispensaries."

"Impossible" is just one word for it.

King County vs. Pierce County

One of the biggest problems with Washington's medical marijuana law, and one of the things we're seeing play out in Pierce County, is how the ambiguity in legislation allows for different interpretations in different jurisdictions.  For example, Seattle and King County can take relatively lenient approaches in enforcement related to medical marijuana, while cops in Pierce County can make undercover buys and bust down doors. It's as though every county in our state is left to determine for itself what the intent and implementation of Washington's medical marijuana law should be. Here, again, patients are caught in the middle of a bigger ideological battle.

"The way that the law is currently written makes it more susceptible to difference in interpretation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, because if a particular law enforcement agency or prosecutor wants to interpret the law as strictly as it is written then they are entitled to arrest these patients and arrest people who are trying to provide these patients medical marijuana," says the ACLU Washington's Drug Policy Director Alison Holcomb.

"Definitely the political questions about whether or not marijuana should be legal for all adults color how people look at medical marijuana laws," says Holcomb, noting there will always be those that view medical marijuana as "a Trojan horse for the full legalization of marijuana."

"To that extent, sure, patients are struggling with that, especially in those jurisdictions where you're seeing a more restrictive application of the law," she says.

King County, under the guidance of Prosecutor Satterberg, is widely considered a progressive forerunner when it comes to dealing with medical marijuana. Here, with Satterberg's guidance, cops and prosecutors seem to have struck a balance between respecting the spirit of Washington's medical marijuana law and respecting the obligations of King County police forces.

The policy of Satterberg's office as it pertains to Washington's medical marijuana law was laid out in memorandum to all law enforcement agencies in King County in October of 2008.  While basically the same as saying King County isn't interested in prosecuting medical marijuana patients who are "playing by the rules," it does put in writing - for all to read - King County's official stance on (and approach to) medical marijuana, a move that has added a tiny bit of clarification to a totally confused situation.

The memorandum states:

1. The (Prosecuting Attorney's Office) does not intend to prosecute those individuals who are truly ill.  While some of these individuals will have the paperwork to show they are in compliance with the affirmative defense of RCW 69.51A (Washington's medical marijuana law), some will not.  Our office will look with a very lenient eye towards those medically ill people who have reasonably tried but failed to have their medical marijuana paperwork in order.

2. We will accept the forthcoming guidance from the Department of Health as to the quantity of marijuana that is permissible under the law.  The Department of Health has now set that amount as 24 ounces of useable marijuana and 15 plants, in any stage of growth.  There has been substantial debate and disagreement over this proposal with state government, law enforcement and the larger medical marijuana community.  The amount set is now one of several factors in deciding whether or not a person legally possesses marijuana for medical purposes.  The  (Prosecuting Attorney's Office) will not reflexively prosecute an ill person possessing an amount over the presumptive standard set by the Department of Health who is otherwise compliant with RCW 69.51A.  However, we will litigate this issue if there is clear and convincing evidence that the person possessing the marijuana is not ill, or the individual is selling marijuana to non-ill individuals.

3. In our experience, there are cases where groups of individuals share, distribute, and cooperate in the growing and distribution of marijuana to those medically in need.  While ideally all involved would have proper medical documentation, we do not wish to prosecute these operations so long as it is clear that qualifying patients/providers are distributing to other qualifying patients/providers, and that someone in the operation has the proper documentation in compliance with RCW 69.51A.  If, however, it is clear that the operation is a mere front for growing and distributing marijuana to those who are not ill, we will prosecute.

4. Because there is no way to simply know, without investigation, if a person (or group of persons) is in compliance with the affirmative defense, we support law enforcement's reasonable efforts to carefully and sensitively investigate these cases.  Failure to do so would be contrary to the law as currently written, and unfair to those who are in compliance with the law.  As these investigations proceed, we must remember that the affirmative defense remains largely undefined, making successful prosecutions challenging at best.

"What you've got in King County is a prosecutor who has decided to interpret the law pretty broadly," says Dawdy, crediting Satterberg for respecting the spirit of the law and what voters intended more than the poorly construed nuts and bolts of the actual medical marijuana legislation. Dawdy points out that Seattle voters approved Initiative 75 in 2003, which mandated that arrests of adult marijuana users would become the lowest priority of the Seattle Police Department.  This, of course, has helped Satterberg's cause, he says. Because, as we've learned, it takes more than prosecutorial guidance and leniency to make Washington's medical marijuana law (moderately) functional. It takes cooperation from law enforcement too.

While the medical marijuana community, Satterberg's office and King County law enforcement still have their differences, they have managed to understand where each side is coming from. Not long after Satterberg's office issued its memorandum to King County law enforcement, many police departments in King County issued their own memorandums, basically echoing Satterberg's sentiment with omnipresent disclaimers making it clear that anyone using medical marijuana as a front for illegal activity will still face the wrath of law enforcement. Impressively, cops in the field seem to be listening - to both messages.

In King County you have a prosecutor respecting the spirit of the medical marijuana law and police forces that have, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, followed suit.  This may be the best a community can hope for in a thoroughly goofy situation.

So, what's going wrong in Pierce County?  Why did Macourek's house get ransacked by cops, and why are medical marijuana patients running scared?

The answer, not surprisingly, isn't cut and dried.

People like Dawdy place a heavy blame at the top, and specifically on Lindquist.

"The problem is the law is screwed up.  The books are screwed up.  The law does not realize the practical problem," says Dawdy in response to Lindquist's assessment that Pierce County isn't interested in prosecuting anyone that's "playing by the rules."

"The law does not protect these patient co-ops, or dispensaries, call them what they will.  Lindquist can say all the cute things he wants about not wanting to prosecute marijuana patients that are by the books, but the problem is if they go by the books they're going to wind up dead, or wind up without the medicine that their doctor says they can have," says Dawdy.

While Dawdy is correct in a sense, and the situation in Pierce County could no doubt benefit from a firm, issued directive from the prosecutor's office as lenient as Satterberg's, it's also true that prosecutors prosecute, and cops decide who to investigate and arrest.  Lindquist can say whatever he wants, but as long as cops continue to build cases on medical marijuana dispensaries, Lindquist will still be forced to prosecute them by his own definition of the law.

"If someone doesn't like the law, then they should try to change the law," says Lindquist. "But it doesn't do any good to pretend the law is something other than what it is."

Fair enough. Yet, there's no denying the medical marijuana landscape is decidedly different in Pierce County than it is in King County - and both counties are following the same poorly crafted legislation.    

Goodhew is as quick to point out as Lindquist that a prosecutor's office simply deals with the cases it's given. Goodhew says given a similar case, meaning one that involves a dispensary, Satterberg's office "likely" would have prosecuted as well, though he was careful to note every case is different. Goodhew says that in King County's view dispensaries are illegal.  It's cut and dried. Just like it is in Pierce County.

The kicker, however, is King County has never been presented with such a case.  If it was, the prosecutor's office would almost certainly prosecute it, says Goodhew. This may happen in the case of Steve Sarich, a medical marijuana grower that was the target of a violent robbery attempt, and his operation has subsequently been put under investigation by the King County Sheriff's office.  But it hasn't happened, at least not yet - despite the fact medical marijuana dispensaries have existed and even advertised on a limited basis in King County for longer than they have in Tacoma and Pierce County.

Back in Pierce County, the sound bites keep coming.

"The Prosecutor's Office has no interest in prosecuting legitimate medical marijuana users or providers who play by the rules," says Lindquist.

Again, what those becoming frustrated with the situation in Tacoma and Pierce County can't figure out is what exactly that means.

The war that never ends

Unfortunately you can't talk about marijuana busts, and police motivations for launching investigations into medical marijuana dispensaries in Tacoma, without also delving into the War on Drugs, a national policy that every day compiles more evidence of its utter failure.  Sadly, Washington's law forces police departments engaged in the War on Drugs to also be the ones applying initial interpretations of the murky law - in the field, where it counts.  This is simply a recipe for disaster.  It's impossible to classify marijuana as a medicine within one tiny sector of society, but in broader reality still consider it a Schedule 1 controlled substance and one of the targets of an ongoing war fought on behalf of social betterment.  And, you certainly can't then expect cops to be the ones to both protect the patients and bust the bad guys.  It simply doesn't work.

Retired Police Chief Norm Stamper, and advocate for an end to the War on Drugs, recently provided this account in the Huffington Post.

"...Some police officers, realizing how dependent (addicted?) to drug war revenues their agencies have become, are afraid to speak truth to all that money, and the equipment and overtime it buys.

"State and local law enforcement agencies receive billions in federal funding for performing their dangerous role as frontline regional drug warriors.  Moreover, in a classic case of ironic symbiosis, local police benefit directly from the very traffickers they bust."

Do police agencies profit from the War on Drugs?  Certainly.  Are some cops brainwashed and unable to see marijuana as a legitimate medicine rather than a street drug?  It would seem.  Does the War on Drugs get convoluted with the medical marijuana movement?  Without a doubt.

It's a messy situation, and one that puts patients in the middle. 

"Patients in Tacoma have been unable to obtain a useful, therapeutic medication without fear of reprisal for over a decade" says Kandi. "The law is vague.  The law is unclear to the point that reasonable men can and do disagree about its meaning.  That is the crux of the legal issue.  The more pressing issue is that there are real people in need who are being caught in the middle.

"Since C.O.B.R.A. Medical opened this this July we have met hundreds of new people with real, legitimate, medical needs," he continues. "We have met people with wheel chairs, colostomy bags, visible tremors and numerous other obvious signs of real health care issues.  We have diabetics with neuropathic pain, cancer patients and people with glaucoma.  They are all willing to share their stories.  They are your sons and daughters, your mothers and fathers, your cousins and your grandparents.  They are the people of Tacoma.

So what the hell do we do?

The one thing everyone agrees on is something must be done to fix the law, and that ultimate responsibility lies with state legislators, who may get around to it by 2020 or so. In the meantime, local players - law enforcement, prosecutors, city and county council members and proponents of medical marijuana - need to sit down and talk. Really. It's time.

"We have a dilemma.  We have well-meaning police and elected officials trying to make the best of a sticky situation.  Are they against drug laws or are they against patient rights?  Not a good set of choices when you're running for office.  The sound bites almost always end up coming off badly to one group or another," says Kandi. "We also have business owners and patients who depend on them wondering ‘Am I next?'  ‘Am I the next guy to get a jack-boot through my door without warning?' The only solution is to call a truce. Call a truce and open a dialogue."

Subjects for discussion and a model for negotiation can be found in Seattle, where representatives from the ACLU; ranking members of the King County Prosecutor's Office; Seattle PD's Narcotics Division Captain and other officers; the East Side Task Force; and directors of three of Seattle's dispensaries gathered to discuss the development of guidelines for collective cultivation of medical marijuana and designated providers. By the time they were done, Seattle Police officials had pledged that they would consider the total number of marijuana patients involved with a garden before destroying all but 15 plants. The King County Prosecutor iterated his policy of not prosecuting people operating collective growing operations, as long as it was clear that grow operations served medical users.

Kandi has a few suggestions for discussions closer to home.

"Mitigate the complaints from neighbors by setting forth zoning requirements limiting the proximity of medical marijuana establishments to sensitive areas."

"Remember: one bad apple does not spoil the whole bushel.  If the city continues to have issue with the activity at a particular establishment, close the establishment. But do not paint every other business in that industry with the same broad brush. Cities across the nation have been enacting medical marijuana laws without any direction from their respective state legislatures.  They have recognized the need for accessibility and regulation. Tacoma can and should do the same."