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Written by Vanessa Nelson
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Friday, 25 January 2008 00:38 |
 Reverend Jeffre Sanderson has been jailed on federal charges for his marijuana garden.
But being chained up and undernourished had clearly not broken Sanderson’s spirit. A mother’s keen eye can discern all the clues of hardship, but to the rest of the world, Sanderson displayed a mixture of self-assured poise and sporty, youthful vitality. To put it this way – if Abercrombie & Fitch decided to market a line of Rasta fashions, this young man could easily be their next top model.
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In this scenario, however, Sanderson was facing a judge rather than a camera. Still, he stood in perfect posture at the defendant’s podium, his face serene beneath wiry spectacles and an array of brown dreadlocks. With aplomb, he provided answers to the background questions that are standard for change of plea hearings, giving information about his formal education and treatment for drug addiction. When asked about his occupation, his words conveyed dignity and a hint of pride.
“I consider myself a farmer,” Sanderson told the judge.
It was a telling answer. After all, the defendant was there to plead guilty to the cultivation of some eighty marijuana plants, which law enforcement officers had personally dried and trimmed into an amount stipulated as approximately 60 kilograms. It no longer mattered whether Sanderson’s grow was in compliance with state regulations on medical use. In federal court, all marijuana is considered illegal, even when it has been approved by a physician and authorized by California law.
Sanderson’s attorney, public defender Tim Zindel, emphasized this conflict. “The unique feature of Jeff’s case is the tension between state law, which authorized Jeff’s conduct, and federal law, which made it illegal,” Zindel observed.
But the defense attorney went on to mention a more distinctive factor – unlike many other medical marijuana defendants who end up in federal court, Sanderson appeared to receive no monetary compensation for the medicine he provided. Zindel explained that the courts were more accustomed to cultivation cases in which money changes hands. “The evidence in Jeff’s case, however, showed a lack of any profit motive – indeed, no evidence shows that Jeff ever made a dime from cultivating cannabis.”
It seemed to be an unusual situation, making some observers wonder what was really going on with the Sanderson case. But for those who were skeptical about this young man’s altruism, it took just a peek into his background to see the depth of his dedication and witness the strength of his convictions. Medical marijuana is far from being an abstract concept to Sanderson – rather, it has been as crucial to his life as the air he breathes.
Born in 1980 to a loving family, Sanderson had the singular misfortune of suffering from acute asthma. His childhood was punctuated by frequent attacks and emergency hospitalizations, his condition becoming so severe that his physical activity was greatly limited. The attacks continued in spite of medical treatment with a series of steroid inhalers, which brought with them an assortment of harmful side effects. By the time he reached high school, Sanderson was excelling academically, but still on the sidelines when it came to gym class and organized sports. This forced passivity was nearly as detrimental to his spirit as being terrorized by the constant threat of sudden, life-threatening breathlessness.
Things finally changed for Sanderson during his sophomore year, when a friend introduced him to marijuana. But this was not a parent’s nightmare of peer-pressured drug deals and a destructive tailspin into substance abuse. According to Sanderson, the friend was a fellow member of the church youth group, and he offered the marijuana as a gift in the hope that it could deter the asthma attacks. To Sanderson’s astonishment, it did.
Following his friend’s instructions, he took one inhalation of smoked marijuana when he first noticed a shortness of breath. The wheezing stopped like magic, and he suddenly found himself able to take full, deep breaths. “My lungs had at no time felt so unrestricted previously,” Sanderson recalled.
He was amazed that the marijuana out-performed all of his steroid inhalers, and delighted that it brought none of the side effects of these other medications. “Nearly overnight, the God-given natural herb replaced the many man-made pharmaceuticals as my daily respiration therapeutics,” Sanderson said. As he described it, this substitution resulted in increased endurance, stronger immune function and improved general wellness. “The only occasions in my life where the asthma attacks returned were on the occasions when the herb was unattainable to me,” he noted.
For Sanderson, the changes in his health were intense and richly meaningful. But this personal transformation was not to be Sanderson’s only experience with the efficacy of medical marijuana, nor was it to be the most powerful. His next lesson was even more profound, altering his life completely and leading him onto a path of selflessness and enlightenment.
The turn of the millennium found Sanderson living with Meegan Wieczorek, an energetic young woman he had met while attending massage school in northern California. Early on in their relationship, as it turned out, they faced a colossal challenge. While seeking medical attention for a minor leg injury that wouldn’t heal, Wieczorek was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare and often deadly form of bone cancer. To make matters worse, the necessary amputation of her injured leg forced Wieczorek to deal with the loss of a limb at the same time that she was encountering the rigors of chemotherapy.
Even with these immediate and aggressive treatments, however, she had only a 20% chance of survival. The odds were clearly stacked against her, but she took on the fight wholeheartedly nonetheless. The young couple, though barely into their 20s at this time, met the challenges with a wisdom and maturity beyond their years.
“Meegan inquired as to the extent of my dedication to her as her primary caregiver during her battle with cancer, as her family lived on the east coast,” Sanderson explained soberly. “My compassion for her was so powerful that without hesitation I agreed wholeheartedly to set my life aside and give her full-time, live-in care and unfettered support.”
It wasn’t just rhetoric – Sanderson was true to his word. “He devoted himself to my healing,” Wieczorek readily acknowledged. And it was no easy task. Naturally, the amputation created mobility issues, and she spent much of the first year in a wheelchair before being fitted with a prosthetic on the five inches of her leg that remained. Her cancer treatment was given at the hospital at the University of California, San Francisco, and getting around on the city’s steep streets in a wheelchair was extremely difficult for a novice.
Plus, the chemotherapy sessions brought their own grueling consequences. “It went worse than expected,” Sanderson said, describing the first round of treatment. “Violent nausea, hourly vomiting, absence of appetite, alopecia, constipation, and depression were upon Meegan at once.” Concerned, Wieczorek’s oncologist suggested medical marijuana as a preventative and a deterrent to the side effects that debilitated her. Finding a supply of this medicine was difficult, however, and the couple’s lack of funds made the search almost impossible.
Almost…but not quite.
“Compassion” is a key word in the medical marijuana community, and there are plenty of heart-warming stories to justify it. In narrative that seems almost mystical, Sanderson describes how donations of marijuana and delivery devices were arranged by a connection made through a chance meeting. Wieczorek gratefully accepted the medicine and ingested it in a variety of ways, including vaporizing and consuming marijuana-infused edibles. During her following chemotherapy sessions, she came through with flying colors, and at the conclusion of her treatment, diagnostics revealed that there was no sign of cancer at all.
Her progress did not go unnoticed. Wieczorek’s doctors all marveled at how well she had done in coping with the chemotherapy, and eventually the hospital board members asked to interview her privately regarding the successful outcome. What they learned from this conference made a powerful impression. “To this day, UCSF allows vaporizing of herb and consumption of herb-laced edibles on all cancer floors, including the children’s floor,” Sanderson announced.
Shortly after Wieczorek’s successful recovery, she and Sanderson parted paths amicably. “Today she lives a very active and productive life as a student and caring for her fiance’s two sons,” Sanderson reported with satisfaction. “She has been rock climbing as well, and plans on taking up snow skiing in the near future.”
As for himself, Sanderson was inspired to devote the next two years of his life to repaying the generosity that was shown to his former girlfriend during her time of need. He began an apprenticeship with a medical marijuana cultivator and caregiver, and found the work deeply fulfilling. “We worked primarily with terminal cancer and AIDS patients while administering proper strains and amounts of cannabis free of charge,” Sanderson recalled. About his mentor, he related, “His main piece of advice was to never become involved in the sales of herb.”
It was advice that Sanderson gladly followed as he began setting up his own caregiver garden. “We are tricked into thinking we need money,” he said, reflecting on the culture of materialism. “Everything you really need in this life can come from your garden.”
That may be true…at least, until law enforcement arrives, that is.
 Jeffre Sanderson with his older son, Jamie.
But neither medical qualifications nor religious practice could keep the cops out of the couple’s yard. Sanderson’s prowess in agriculture had rewarded him with remarkably tall plants, but the isolated rural setting kept his cultivation largely out of view. Nonetheless, law enforcement officers spied it while doing aerial surveillance of the region in July 2006, ostensibly in search of a different grow. The Plumas County Sheriff’s Department then followed up with ground surveillance, pinpointing the exact location of Sanderson and Wiegand’s garden. A search warrant was quickly obtained, and on August 14th, 2006, the couple’s home was raided by a task force that included local sheriff’s deputies as well as federal agents.
It was a dramatic invasion, with officers using SWAT techniques to subdue a small family that was in the midst of their morning breakfast. Sanderson was immediately taken to the ground and handcuffed, and Wiegand describes the agents holding her and her six month old baby at gunpoint. Sanderson asserted that his grow was medical and in compliance with the law, but his claims fell on deaf ears. What followed was careless destruction, as the house and garden were torn apart in the search.
At the conclusion of the operation, Wiegand and Sanderson were arrested on cultivation charges and transported to jail, while little Jamie went into the custody of Child Protective Services. The family’s vehicle – a 1999 Dodge truck – was confiscated, along with the three thousand dollars cash that was found in the house. “Five hundred dollars of that money was in Jamie’s piggy bank,” Wiegand divulged.
The couple thought they would get out of jail that day, but they were met with an unexpected obstacle. “We were denied immediate bail because the judge feared the bail money being offered by my mother was ‘drug money,’” Wiegand recollected. “She was trying to pay it with her credit card. I wasn’t aware that Visa and Mastercard were in the business of selling drugs!”
Sanderson and Wiegand were forced to stay in jail three days until another bail hearing could establish the “legitimacy” of the bail funds. At that time, they were released, and began trying to get their son back from CPS. “They told us we would have six months to be rehabilitated from our alleged ‘drug addiction’ to marijuana, or they would put [Jamie] up for adoption,” Wiegand said. “We immediately stopped using our medicine and began efforts to satisfy CPS.”
They got short-lived burst of optimism when the Plumas County District Attorney dropped their case. As Sanderson put it, “The local DA said that he would not prosecute due to our legal status under state law.” But it was only a false ray of hope – the US Attorney took up the prosecution of the case as soon as it was dropped by the DA. The switch forced Sanderson and Wiegand to face their charges in the more perilous federal jurisdiction, where documentation of their compliance with state law would no longer be a defense.
On September 5th, 2006, Sanderson and Wiegand were awoken and arrested by federal agents, then transported to jail in Sacramento. The couple faced charges for manufacturing of over a hundred plants, conspiracy to manufacture over a hundred plants, and asset forfeiture proceedings for their seven-acre property. They returned to Plumas County after being released on a secured $100,000 bail, and their son Jamie’s homecoming followed shortly thereafter. It was a joyous reunion, though with bittersweet overtones. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and his first birthday had all been celebrated away from his beloved home,” Wiegand noted about her son.
 Jeffre Sanderson and Alice Wiegand welcomed the birth of their new son Jahson in May 2007. Grandma Pam Ayoob (right) called the birth a sweet family affair.
Inevitably, though, the periods of sunshine were followed by disaster, and on October 3rd, 2007, Sanderson and Wiegand’s home was invaded by federal agents yet again. This time, the search turned up a modest garden of 17 plants and a few dozen unrooted clones, all of which were taken into evidence. Also taken was Sanderson, who was placed in Sacramento County Jail due to the fact that marijuana cultivation violated the terms of his supervised release.
Wiegand, however, was not arrested during this bust. Instead, she was left at home alone with her two children… but not for long. “The local sheriffs decided to call CPS to make sure the boys were not exposed to THC,” Wiegand explained. “CPS arrived and promptly took the babies away due to allegations the sheriffs made about smelling cannabis burning as they approached the house.” At this time, Jamie was 20 months old and Jahson a mere five months. As before, the parents were given half a year to reunify with their children, or else both boys would be adopted out.
 Jamie and Jahson were both taken into custody of Child Protective Services in October 2007, shortly after their father was jailed for cultivating marijauna.
A consultation with an attorney convinced Ayoob that, before calling CPS, the arresting officers should have asked Sanderson and Wiegand if there was a family member who could take the children. However, she suspects a financial motive behind the fact that the officers neglected to do this. “If CPS doesn’t get involved and the children are not placed in foster care, there is no money generated and quotas are not met,” Ayoob speculated.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Beckwith, on the other hand, has stressed that there was a dire need for the children to be removed from the home. To this end, he has referenced two separate hair follicle tests on Jamie that came out positive for THC. The prosecutor brought up these tests most recently during a hearing on Sanderson’s bail hold, using them to argue that the defendant is “a danger to society.”
Sanderson and Wiegand deny giving their children marijuana and contend that the tests were flawed. Proving this, unfortunately for the defendants, will mean fighting an uphill battle.
The charges from his second bust were dropped, but Sanderson remained behind bars nonetheless. He was denied bail due to the evidence that he had violated the terms of his supervised release by cultivating marijuana. According to Sanderson, however, those terms were unconstitutional in the first place, since prohibiting him from cultivating marijuana denies his first amendment right to freedom of religion.
It was an argument that went nowhere in front of Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd last November. Although he described Sanderson as a “stand-up guy” and expressed no doubts of the sincerity of his religious practice, the judge specifically rejected the notion that the cultivation or possession of marijuana could be lawful. As a result of this ruling, Sanderson would be held in Sacramento County Jail until the resolution of the case against him.
Given the fact that federal cases can take years to go to trial, this hold could have been quite a long one indeed. However, the plea deal Sanderson and Wiegand took last November effectively sped up this process and made sentencing the very next step. The hearing is currently scheduled for February 19th, 2008, in front of Judge Damrell in Sacramento’s federal courthouse.
 Jeffre Sanderson reads a children's book aloud to sons Jahson and Jamie.
Zindel expects the prosecutor to request a sentence of 24-36 months for Sanderson, but believes he can convince Judge Damrell to impose lesser sanctions. Since Sanderson and Wiegand pled guilty to charges involving less than a hundred plants, no mandatory minimum sentence applies. Nonetheless, Zindel cautions against any illusions about his client getting off scot-free. “Judge Damrell is required by oath to uphold federal law, even when that law may conflict with the will of California voters,” the defense attorney maintained. “In other words, he can’t let Jeff off the hook for violating a federal law, even one that many people believe is unreasonable and unfair.”
Although it remains to be seen whether Sanderson and Wiegand will receive prison sentences, certain losses are essentially guaranteed. Both will be convicted felons, forced to endure the social stigmatization and the diminished civil rights that go along with that classification. And both will lose their home through forfeiture, since part of Wiegand’s plea deal required surrendering her house to the federal government. “I have had this home for almost ten years,” she lamented. “I was told I had to come up with the full amount of the equity or give up the house before sentencing.”
The couple’s main concern, however, is regaining custody of Jamie and Jahson. For Sanderson especially, accepting a plea deal may have been his best shot at being with his sons during their developmental years. Sanderson’s mother put it most poignantly, “His children are suffering without him, and him without them,” she said of her son and her grandkids. “He played a very vital and active role in their day-to-day life.”
But, true to the image he gave at his plea hearing, Sanderson remains meditatively composed as he handles the hardships of incarceration. From Sacramento County Jail, his words show a tranquility of spirit and a calm transcendence. “Spiritually, I’m growing leaps and bounds,” he writes. “This opportunity that I have been blessed with has been in disguise to most of the folks watching my case…The most high has a plan for us all and never hands us more than we can deal with.”
Jeffre Sanderson and Alice Wiegand are scheduled to be sentenced on March 3rd, 2008, in the courthouse at 501 I Street in Sacramento, CA. They will appear in Courtroom 2 on the 15th Floor, in front of Judge Frank C. Damrell, Jr., at 10am.
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Last Updated on Friday, 15 February 2008 15:46 |
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