Big Isle police seize plants
from medical pakalolo user

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

LEILANI ESTATES, Hawaii >> Another medical marijuana user says Big Island police have interfered with his legal use of the substance.

Guy Shepard, 60, a retired accountant in Leilani Estates south of Hilo, said police seized two of his seven plants yesterday and destroyed a third. Police left as they came, via helicopter, without arresting him.

The incident followed the arrest of three medical marijuana users in Kona last week where police seized 20 plants and 1.5 ounces of dried marijuana.

The three were released without charges, and their dried marijuana was returned to them, but not their plants. Mayor Harry Kim said the police return of seized marijuana in Kona shows they committed "some kind of judgment error."

All four people in both incidents had state medical marijuana permits.

Kim said he did not know about the Leilani incident, but the Kona incident showed a need to clear up confusion about medical marijuana to avoid "unnecessary trauma to citizens." Kim is reviewing proposed police procedures for medical marijuana, meaning there is no county policy for police on the matter yet.

Shepard said he was at his home about 2:15 p.m. when a woman police officer came down a rope from a helicopter and went after his marijuana plants in the front yard of his 1-acre property.

While he ran to his house for his marijuana permit, another officer came down the rope. The officers cut down his largest plants, about 6 feet tall, although the plants were not mature, he said. The officers left alone four other plants, including two mature ones, he said.

State law allows medical marijuana users to have three mature plants, four immature plants and up to three ounces of dry marijuana.

Kona vice Lt. Robert Hickcox said state rules say a plant is mature if it has flowers and buds. Religious marijuana advocate Dennis Shields says that standard falsely includes plants with immature buds.

Mayor Kim said he has no problem with using marijuana as medicine. "I know how debilitating chronic pain can be," he said.

Shepard, who said he has "big-time backaches," said, "It's really intense pain and cannabis does take it away. It's not a scam. It really does work."