Seniors medical pot collective stirs up trouble

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Seniors' medical pot collective stirs up trouble

By Gillian Flaccus, AP Jun 8, 6:17 am ET

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. – Joe Schwartz is a 90-year-old great-grandfather of three

who enjoys a few puffs of pot each night before he crawls into bed in the

Southern California retirement community he calls home.

The World War II veteran and stroke sufferer smokes the drug to alleviate

debilitating nausea and is one of about 150 senior citizens on this sprawling,

18,000-person gated campus who belongs to a thriving — and controversial —

medical marijuana collective operating in the middle of one of the largest

retirement communities in the United States.

The fledgling collective mirrors a nationwide trend as more and more senior

citizens turn to marijuana, legal or not, to ease the aches and pains of aging.

But in Laguna Woods Village, tucked in the heart of one of the most conservative

and wealthiest counties in California, these ganja-smoking grandparents have

stirred up a heated debate with their collective, attracting a crackdown from

within the self-governed community.

Many members of the 2-year-old collective keep a low profile, but others grow

seedlings on their patios and set up workshops to show other seniors how to turn

the marijuana leaves into tea, milk and a vapor that can be inhaled for relief

from everything from chemotherapy-related nausea to multiple sclerosis to

arthritis.

The most recent project involves getting collective members to plant 40 seeds

from experimental varieties of marijuana that are high in a compound said to

have anti-inflammatory properties best suited for elderly ailments. The tiny

plastic vials, each containing 10 seeds, are stamped with names like " Sour

Tsunami. "

Under California law, people with a variety of conditions, from migraines to

cancer, can get a medical marijuana card with a doctor's recommendation and join

a pot collective to get what they need. All the members of Laguna Woods

Village's collective have medical marijuana cards and are legal users under

state law, but the drug is still banned under federal law.

Lonnie Painter, the collective's president and perhaps most activist member,

worries daily about his high-profile position within the tiny community of pot

users. The 65-year-old grandfather supplements regular painkillers with

marijuana tea for osteoarthritis and keeps stacks of marijuana collective

applications on a desk in the living room, just a few feet from the Lego bricks

his 7-year-old grandson plays with on his frequent visits.

" We've got people who don't like it here, they don't like marijuana and they

still have that `communism' and `perversion' and `killer weed' attitude, " said

Painter, who has shoulder-length gray hair, a white goatee and wears several

gold necklaces. " What I get more worried about is myself getting put in jail. If

you were just a patient you'd be safe, but if you are active and involved in any

way in making it available for others, the federal government can come and scoop

you up. "

In the first two years of the collective's life, however, Painter and other

members have had more trouble from their fellow residents than from the

government.

When things first got under way, Painter and three others were growing about two

dozen plants with names like Super Silver Haze in the Laguna Woods Village

community garden. Photos show his 800-square-foot plot overflowing with

marijuana plants taller than a grown man butting up against the staked tomatoes

and purple flowering clematis of other gardeners.

But the Golden Rain Foundation, the all-volunteer board that governs the

community, cracked down and prohibited the cultivation of marijuana on all

Laguna Woods Village property. The vote followed the report of the theft of two

marijuana plants, tangerines and a rake and shovel from the community garden,

according to meeting minutes of the Community Activities Committee's Garden

Center Advisory Group.

The foundation, which maintains the 3-square-mile community's 153 acres of golf

courses, seven clubhouses and other amenities, adopted the policy late last year

after a lengthy legal review.

" We thought that it was not proper. It sets a precedent. Our gardens are for

flowers and vegetables, and that's all, and it's been that way since 1964 or

1965 when this was started, " said Feichtmann, who was chairman of the

Garden Advisory Group. " We thought that's what it should remain and not get

involved with medical marijuana or anything else that is considered on the

fringe. "

Those with medical marijuana cards can still grow the state limit of six mature

plants per person in their private residences.

Margolis, who sat on the Garden Center Advisory Group, said the debate has

divided people along generational lines in a community where the average age is

78 but new residents can move in at 55. She estimated that up to 10 of her

younger neighbors take medical pot for ailments but said many older residents

are fiercely opposed.

" This did stir up a lot of feelings, " said Margolis, 67, who said those opposed

the public pot plots had valid safety concerns. " There are a lot of people that

have never used marijuana and there are younger people who have used marijuana

who say, `Come on now, this is just ridiculous.' "

After the vote, the collective had to rip its plants out and has struggled to

produce the pot it needs for its members.

At first, the senior citizens tried to run their own grow site by creating a

greenhouse in a rented facility off-site, but they lost thousands of dollars of

crop when someone plugged a grow light into the wrong outlet, giving the plants

24 hours of light a day during the critical flowering period instead of 12

hours. Then, they gave seedlings to a grower operating a greenhouse in Los

Angeles, but that ended just as badly: The place was busted by police, and all

the plants were confiscated and destroyed.

Now, a fellow Laguna Woods Village resident and collective member recently

started growing for the group in two off-site greenhouses whose location Painter

and others declined to provide. The all-organic supply is distributed to members

on a sliding scale, from $35 an ounce to about $200 an ounce based on ability to

pay and need. Many members also grow their legal limit of six seedlings on

private patios or in space-age looking indoor tents designed to coddle the

growing weed.

The collective's website, which includes three albums of photos of the pot

plants growing alongside regular produce, dresses down the community's board

members for the collective's rocky path, calling them " ill-informed, intolerant

tyrants " who have violated members' rights.

" It's just so difficult and it shouldn't be because it makes me feel like I'm

doing something criminal but I'm not, " said Barbara Ayala, a Laguna Woods

Village resident and collective member who says she received nasty emails when

she organized a daylong medical marijuana workshop. " I'm only trying to provide

people with medicine ... that is the best quality that we can provide. "

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