Quote:

---

James Bowman thought twice about planting a marijuana crop this year after federal agents shut down a handful of large-scale medical marijuana operations last fall.

But Bowman said he kept hearing from medical marijuana patients who asked him to grow pot for them. Instead of backing off, Bowman, 52, decided to take on twice as many patients as the year before, doubling the number of marijuana plants he could cultivate.

None of those plants will make it to harvest.

Federal agents and local and state police Tuesday morning descended on seven sites associated with Bowman's High Hopes Farm, a medical marijuana enterprise in rural Jackson County serving more patients than any in the state. Authorities said the raids are part of a federal investigation into drug manufacturing and distribution.

Though medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, pot remains illegal under federal law.

Bowman, a longtime and outspoken fixture in Southern Oregon's marijuana community, faces the prospect of federal drug charges but was not taken into custody. The government ordered earth-moving equipment onto the properties to remove his marijuana plants.

Martin Hensley, a medical marijuana patient of Bowman's who lives in Portland, was stunned.

"Are you serious?" said Hensley. "Lord, have mercy. I can't believe it. What am I going to do?"

Bowman could not be reached for comment.

Federal authorities declined to comment on the investigation. But U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall told The Oregonian in an interview last week that recent federal prosecutions have targeted growers flouting the medical marijuana program by cultivating more pot than patients need.

"We always would have prosecuted people who have large-scale drug trafficking operations that are trafficking marijuana," she said. "It just so happens," Marshall said, that these people are using the Oregon's medical marijuana law as a defense, "and we are defeating that defense."

Medical marijuana advocates say Tuesday's raids hurt patients who rely on Bowman for their pot.

"The result of an action like this is the patients who previously relied on obtaining their medicine from this farm are forced into the underground market," said Leland Berger, a Portland lawyer and medical marijuana advocate.

Lori Duckworth, a medical marijuana activist in southern Oregon, said she drove to Bowman's farm Tuesday.

"I am here to protest if they seize any of the patients' medicine," she said. "These patients are now losing their medicine."

Duckworth said she was not surprised by the crackdown on High Hopes.

"He was so large and so frank and so open about his operation that at some point he would be a target," she said.

Last spring, Bowman, who once did a 3-year stint in federal prison for his role in a marijuana growing ring in southern Oregon, allowed a reporter and a photographer from The Oregonian to spend time on his farm. He answered wide-ranging questions about his operation and explained what he does with the excess marijuana he produces.

"We are showing the process so we can show how it can be done correctly," he said at the time. "It's a gamble on our part."

Last year, he said, he gave 250 pounds of pot to farmhands and workers who helped keep the year-round enterprise going. He gave 400 pounds to patients. He had about 260 pounds extra.

Patients who wanted some of that overage had a choice. They could pay $40 an ounce -- Bowman called it a "mandatory" reimbursement -- to cover his utilities and supplies. Or they could pay $150 an ounce, an amount Bowman said covered the true cost of the plant's production and included Bowman's biggest expense, labor.

Oregon law allows growers only to be reimbursed for supplies and utilities involved in cultivating marijuana.

"We believe we deserve to be paid for what we do and right now there is this gray area, but we feel if we keep doing a good job that no one is really going to begrudge us a living," Bowman told The Oregonian.

This year, Bowman said he intended to plant 400 plants for 200 medical marijuana patients – about a third of what he's allowed under Oregon's medical marijuana law.

Those plants, he estimated, would produce about three pounds of pot a piece. That translates into an estimated 1,200 pounds with a black market value of more than $1 million.

Bowman said at the time he understood what he was doing was illegal under federal law.

"This is serious civil disobedience with the federal government," he said. "Don't get into this if you don't understand that.

Bowman said police helicopters occasionally conducted surveillance over his farm.

He worried about a federal raid.

"You're thinking, 'They're here. This is the day,'" he said. "Every day I have that fear. Every night I think, 'Well, tomorrow might be the day.'"
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/09/southern_oregon_medical_mariju_1.html

---

Video from Newswatch12

From Google maps

Quote:

---

anunnakian said:
Third Raid in Oregon in the last couple weeks.
Those Feds are at it again.

---

Quote:

---

"Every day I have that fear. Every night I think, 'Well, tomorrow might be the day.'"

---