A medical marijuana patient himself, he joined with a small group of others to start a marijuana collective called Answerdam Alternative Care. He served as manager. It was a legal venture, he believed, made possible under California law.
But for Jackson, it was a decision that ultimately landed him in court.
For the second time in less than a year, Jackson, 32, is headed to trial on charges of illegally possessing and selling marijuana. The charges stem from a raid at the Kearny Mesa dispensary in September. In December, he was acquitted of similar charges related to an earlier raid on the same property.
Pretrial motions are expected to begin this week in San Diego Superior Court.
News of the impending trial is causing Jackson and medical marijuana advocates to once again question why the district attorney would bother to prosecute this case and others like it, in light of previous losses.
In March, just a few months after the Jackson verdict, another dispensary operator, Eugene Davidovich, was acquitted of drug possession and sales charges. Not surprisingly, Davidovich remains a vocal critic of District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and the “fierce fight” he claims she is waging on medical marijuana patients.
“One would think that after two trials, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars wasted and her reputation damaged, that Ms. Dumanis would reconsider her approach,” Davidovich wrote in a recent e-mail sent to the news media. “Or at the least create a guideline for patients to follow and avoid prosecution when they are following the law.”
Dumanis, who was on vacation last week, was not available for comment. But others in her office maintain that county prosecutors are not targeting medical marijuana patients but are prosecuting for-profit dealers whom California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and Medical Marijuana Program Act of 2003 were never intended to protect.
“We absolutely respect the will of the voters,” said Chris Lindberg, the deputy district attorney who’s handling the Jackson case.
Lindberg said he believes the evidence is sufficient in Jackson’s case to prove the charges to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jackson, who now works in a Lemon Grove barbershop, maintains his innocence.
“I had always felt that everything I was doing was by the book,” he said, explaining that he was prescribed marijuana by a San Diego doctor because of temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, a condition that causes pain in the lower jaw.
The charges in Jackson’s first trial stemmed from undercover buys made by a detective in June and July of 2008. The dispensary also was raided on Sept. 9, 2009, as part of a larger multiagency investigation dubbed Operation Green Rx, which led to the second set of charges filed against Jackson.
According to testimony from Jackson’s first trial, patients who wanted to obtain marijuana from the Answerdam collective were required to show a doctor’s recommendation and sign a membership agreement. An undercover detective who obtained marijuana from the office on Convoy Court signed the document with a false name.
Jackson’s lawyer, Lance Rogers, has said part of the problem is the vagueness of the law, which allows for patients to collectively grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. Rogers has argued that member fees could be used to aid cultivation.
Rogers also contends there are inherent problems when an investigation involves “cross-sworn officers” who are charged with enforcing state and federal law. Marijuana possession and use, even for medicinal purposes, remains illegal under federal law.
“What happens when the laws are in direct conflict?” Rogers said. “What is an officer to do?”
The state Attorney General’s Office issued guidelines in 2008 on how medical marijuana could be grown and distributed, but they are interpreted and enforced differently around the state.
Jackson said his involvement with the now-defunct collective has cost him friends, family, time and money since he helped start it in late 2007. And it still could cost the Navy veteran his freedom. He faces a possible sentence of more than five years in prison if convicted.
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
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