August 26, 2009 in City

Medical marijuana seller busted during buying trip

Oregon doesn’t recognize pot permits from other states

Meghann M. Cuniff meghannc@spokesman.com, (509) 459-5534

Scott Shupe, co-owner of Change, a medical marijuana dispensary in Spokane, was arrested in Oregon last week with 4 pounds of weed and $18,000. Shupe says he was bringing the pot back to the business.
(Full-size photo)

More than a thousand medical marijuana patients have purchased the drug at a small dispensary on Northwest Boulevard in Spokane in the nearly five months it’s been open.

Business is booming, and Scott Q. Shupe, co-owner of the dispensary, intended to keep it that way when he set out for Oregon with thousands of dollars and a lead on several pounds of marijuana.

Shupe, 54, was driving back from Bend, Ore., on Friday afternoon when an Oregon State Police trooper pulled him over for crossing the centerline.

That trooper found 4 pounds of marijuana and more than $18,000 in Shupe’s 1993 Chevrolet Cavalier station wagon – supplies destined for his dispensary, he said.

Shupe’s status as a medical marijuana patient in Washington didn’t matter. Oregon doesn’t recognize medical marijuana permits from other states.

Even if it did, patients and caregivers are limited to 1.5 pounds at time.

Shupe is back in Spokane after posting $7,500 bond.

His arrest underscores the dichotomy between medical marijuana patients and police and prosecutors charged with enforcing drug laws.

Washington’s medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 1998 and adjusted later by the Legislature, doesn’t specify how card-carrying medical marijuana users can obtain fresh bud or how caretakers can legally obtain seeds to grow their own. The law also doesn’t address how dispensaries such as Shupe’s can obtain their supplies.

Spokane County prosecutors have said they believe dispensaries such as Change, which Shupe owns with Christopher Stevens, violate the medical marijuana laws because they provide marijuana to more than one person.

But how they’ll address that remains to be seen.

Federal law prohibits marijuana use, even for medicinal purposes, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said he won’t target medical marijuana users.

Locally, police and prosecutors work together to decide who to target and how.

Darren McCrea, founder of the medical-marijuana advocacy group SpoCannabis, was charged Aug. 4 in an investigation that began in October 2007 and culminated with a police raid in June 2008 on his north Spokane home, where detectives found more than 5 pounds of marijuana, according to a probable cause affidavit.

McCrea faces charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, manufacture of a controlled substance and five counts of distribution of a controlled substance.

McCrea’s situation is similar to Shupe’s. Court papers show police heard McCrea was “selling marijuana to anyone with a medical permit.”

The shelves at Change were nearly empty Tuesday. Two jars of fresh marijuana sat where Shupe said at least six usually do.

Shupe is hopeful he’ll get his marijuana and money returned, but Wasco County (Ore.) District Attorney Eric Nisley said the law isn’t in his favor.

“It’s going to be a tough one for him,” Nisley said. “He’s probably looking at prison if he’s convicted.”

14 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

Sugar Shane on August 26 at 12:45 a.m.
What a joke! Look at the headlines for the federal deficit! What part of that constitutes the war on drugs!?!? End Prohibition Now! The federal government has no right to legislate morality. In the words of Thomas Jefferson “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so”. Water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants indeed.

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spokelooneh on August 26 at 3:25 a.m.
This is so freaking stupid.

Did you see that story in the Inlander last year, about the mmj patient, horribly disfigured from being burned as a kid, has had dozens of surgeries, and they revoked his visitation with his KID because of mmj use.

This country's priorities are completely whack. We deserve to go to hell in a handbasket.

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greyhound2 on August 26 at 8:23 a.m.
Just more disfunctional insanity.

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Lewis on August 26 at 8:46 a.m.
the owner of the store should have been better informed. just one more example of waste of our tax money. If he gets prison time we will get to pay to keep him there.

Nancy Regan and her crew took away from me and you, she took it far away she took it far away……………

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nslopeofw on August 26 at 9:18 a.m.
Damn dope sellin' hippies! ;-)

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empyrius on August 26 at 5:35 p.m.
I'm ready to cry! These stories just depress me man, o, I know, I could get a doctor’s prescription for this depression, b/c we certainly would not want me to use a natural anti-depressant like marijuana, then the drug companies and doctors’ would lose out on profits; and we all know profit is the end be all of this country huh!

The Lord is on our side Shupe.

Marijuana, a “controlled substance”: har har har har!

And Washington state, the state itself, actively engages in the distribution of a “controlled substance”, alcohol, scientifically proven to be far more dangerous than marijuana:

“Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?”, http://www.lewrockwell.com/armentano-… “Burning Questions for the Authors of 'Marijuana Is Safer'”, http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/….

Every year hundreds of college students die of alcohol poisoning alone, they die of poison from a poisonous substance, but overdose deaths attributed to marijuana are ZERO. And we are not even talking about the diseases alcohol promotes, in stark contrast to the many diseases marijuana actively fights, or the traffic fatalities directly attributed to alcohol, in start contrast to, anecdotally speaking, driving 10 mph in a 25 zone . . .

So until the drug companies, the real drug pushers that is, whose “products” string out our children, “Prescription drug abuse ravages a state's youth”, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31707246/…, and make deadfully dull, physically and mentally, the adult users of their products, and whose OTC products, ceaselessly promoted on TV, possess so many adverse “side” effects you are well advised to actually consult a doctor before taking the drugs; so until these selfsame drug pushers find a way to harness the many medical attributes of marijuana the government protects their future profits and demands a doctor's prescription for possessing and/or using a plant that can grow basically anywhere in this world outside of Antarctica . . .

A perfect example of the evil the love of money unleashes into our world!

Like I said brother Shupe, the Lord is on our side!

Peace

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empyrius on August 26 at 5:35 p.m.
Additionally … .

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empyrius on August 26 at 5:40 p.m.
Swami says (http://www.krem.com/topstories/storie…), “we all know alcohol is dangerous and wrong but legal…so we should compound the problem and make dope legal too?” How does marijuana compound the problem of alcohol being dangerous and wrong? Do you mean that because so many minors abuse a “dangerous and wrong” drug, alcohol, if marijuana were legal they would then begin abusing marijuana? Well if our society did not glorify alcohol like it does maybe so many minors would not abuse alcohol. And who is claiming marijuana is “dangerous and wrong” like alcohol? Education is the means to prevention and/or responsible usage of all substances the government declares as “adults only” activities: while criminalization of marijuana does what? For one it does make us a nation of hypocrites, promoting the usage of a “dangerous and wrong” drug like alcohol (which is scientifically proven to be lethal), while the relatively harmless “drug”, marijuana (scientifically proven to not be lethal), is labeled as “bad” and even outlawed. Secondly, we make “criminals” out of people who are doing nothing more than ingesting a naturally occurring plant (unlike alcohol, which is rotted grapes, yeasts, sugars, and whatever else …); at face value this makes no sense! Thirdly, the massive work force and money wasted battling a naturally growing plant is nothing less than battling God: the marijuana plant was not created by God for the American government to patent and declare off limits to all others!

I also do not subscribe to the theory that if marijuana were decriminalized tomorrow an hundred million Americans would suddenly become dysfunctional stoners. Even if we allowed a Doomsday scenario of 10 million additional infrequent smokers, and an hundred thousand of them developing some “addiction” issues (of which there is no scientific proof for physical addiction and possible psychological addiction pales in comparison to alcohol and cigarettes [cigarettes of course being off the scale psychosomatically addictive]); so even in any possible worst case scenario, the money and manpower saved stopping our war on marijuana would make the money spent on any thereafter “addiction” issues comparable to the water contained in Comstock pool to that of the entire Pacific ocean.

Lastly, and I have a whole bunch more for you too brother swami, but lastly, for now, a schedule I drug is defined as a “drug” that:

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

(A) Marijuana has been scientifically proven not to have a “high potential for abuse”. As plainly proven by idiots robbing stores for alcohol and pharmacies for all those painkillers; contrarily, show me one police report where the perpetrator says, “I robbed granny to get my next marijuana hit”! Just one police report! You can’t? That is b/c there are not any!

(B) “Has no currently accepted medical use …”. We already know the answer to this.

Rendering (C) irrelevant.

The government’s very definition of marijuana as a “schedule I” drug is nonsense!

I have a whole lot more for you too bro! Let us start with Nixon … . : har har har har!

Peace

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justiceandmercy on August 27 at 1:53 p.m.
YOU BETTER GET STARTED, HE'S GONNA NEED A PRAYER……LOTS OF THEM. AND THIS MAN IS NO ANGEL…..TRUST ME!!!!!!!!!HE KNOWS WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE DOES! AND SO DOES THE LORD!

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justiceandmercy on August 27 at 1:59 p.m.
AND SO DO HIS INNOCENT VICTIMS! BOO!!!!!

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justiceandmercy on August 27 at 2:02 p.m.
SHOULD OF STUCK TO MARBLES MAYBE AND LET THE DRUGGIES FEND FOR THEMSELVES! BUT THEN AGAIN…..
GREED WILL GET YOU EVERYTIME. WON'T IT? CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON , THE'LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DONE. AMEN

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justiceandmercy on August 27 at 2:11 p.m.
AND ONE MORE THING, NO MERCY FOR THE WICKED!

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Darral Good on August 31 at 2:55 p.m.
Cannabis is a safe and natural herb.

It certainly does have incredible medical benefits that far outweigh any health risks. It's time to end “Reefer Madness” once and for all. There is no good reason to put people in jail for using the safe and natural herb. Unfortunately it's very hard to break down the walls of bad propaganda.

Cannabis has been given a bad reputation that it does not deserve. For some reason, the media reports only negative things about cannabis and jokes about good things like medical cannabis and industrial hemp. Our nation would be much better off of cannabis was legalized, taxed and regulated.

Adults should not be penalized for using cannabis. There are far too many people in jail for using this plant. Since alcohol is perfectly legal for adults to use for medicinal, industrial and recreational purposes, it seems very unfair to come down so hard on people who choose cannabis.

Darral Good

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gluck7104 on October 12 at 11:39 a.m.
I hope he rots in jail!!!! He does as much harm as good. He rips off some of his medical marijuana patients by getting them to sign over thier 'grow rights' and dumps the patient when the crop matures….He did it to me and I feel certain he has manipulated others as well. He is an unconscienable thief!!!!!!

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