Why worry?

Sheriff Hedges obtained the confidential records of medical marijuana users. Could that be a problem?

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Elaine McKellian vomits three to four times every day. When she sits, her legs knock together uncontrollably at the knees, a condition she apologizes for offhandedly. McKellian suffers from several chronic, debilitating maladies ranging from gastroparesis, which severely impedes digestion of even the most benign liquids, to restless leg syndrome. Nausea keeps her at home most of the time and when she does move it’s in labored, deliberate steps with the aid of a cane. She employs a caretaker. Despite it all, she said life is better than before she started smoking prescription marijuana.

BUSTED

Sheriff’s deputies and federal agents carried out evidence from Compassionate Caregivers in Morro Bay during the March 29 raid, last year. That evidence is being used in Charles Lynch’s federal trial, which began July 22.

“I was throwing up between 12 and 15 times a day,” McKellian said. “I could wake up from a nap and it would just hit me, throwing up bile. Nothing has to be in my stomach. And so I was confined to my bed, and I had a bucket near my bed, and what kind of a life is that? So my caregiver read in the paper about the dispensary opening, and about medical marijuana, and said maybe I should try it. It worked immediately.”

Her frame may be petite and frail but McKellian is capable, and matter-of-fact about her circumstances. She is sick and, in accordance with California law, wants her medicine. She also wants her medical records returned with an apology from Sheriff Patrick Hedges, who solicited federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents to raid the home of Charles Lynch and his Morro Bay business Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers, in March last year.

To lawmakers who backed Proposition 215, and Assembly Bill 420—the so-called medical marijuana laws—McKellian is a model candidate for “alternative” pain relief; she can’t digest the pill Marinol, a synthesized version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active compound in marijuana.

To federal prosecutors trying to convict Charles Lynch on five charges of distributing, cultivating, and trafficking in marijuana from the Morro Bay dispensary, McKellian is a liability.

Prosecutors actually made a formal motion to keep “sick looking” people off the stand. It didn’t work. McKellian will likely testify in Lynch’s defense, but she has her own legal battle to wage. On June 20, she filed a lawsuit against the County of San Luis Obispo, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department, and Sheriff Hedges himself, seeking unlimited damages for his role in busting the dispensary.