Grants Pass man gets 10 years for selling medical pot
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - A registered medical marijuana grower was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for conspiring to sell his crop illegally and for having machine guns and other illegal firearms.
Jason Michael Scott Nelson, owner of a Grants Pass bike shop, admitted taking advantage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program out of greed and apologized to his family, the judge and the prosecutor for his lies.
"I was out of control," Nelson said in U.S. District Court, adding that even after his arrest he tried to grow more marijuana and sell it to "keep myself afloat."
Authorities have said Nelson, 37, was one of four medical marijuana growers from Southwestern Oregon who pooled their harvests and made monthly shipments from Portland to Boston in pods loaded with furniture bought from Goodwill. Police spotted one of the shipments and traced part of it back to Nelson.
When investigators searched Nelson's property, they found a room elaborately set up for growing marijuana, mature and immature plants, and another room hidden behind a gun safe that contained 29 heat-sealed packages of trimmed marijuana buds. Investigators also found the illegal firearms and silencers.
Prosecutor Doug Fong said he asked for the stiff sentence because Nelson lied during his trial, claiming he was growing only for four medical marijuana patients, denying he sold any of it, and trying to shift the blame to his co-defendant, Richard Sherman, who worked in the bike shop and testified to helping Nelson. Fong added that the guns and the fact Nelson was running the operation added to the prison time called for in federal sentencing guidelines.
In arguing for a five-year sentence, defense lawyer Mike Arnold said Nelson developed "this massive growing operation out of a sense of hard work and competitive spirit with other growers."
The judge said he had no doubt Nelson would never commit another crime, but added that he had no choice but to impose a harsh sentence due to Nelson's lying, which would earn him years more in prison if it were prosecuted.
Panner waived the $20,000 fine Nelson offered to pay, saying his family would be facing enough financial difficulties when he got out of prison.
Panner scolded Nelson for trying to shift the blame to Sherman, who worked for him for wages, for putting illegal immigrants in jeopardy by employing them in his growing operation, and for arranging for friends to dismantle a shop building so there was nothing of value for federal authorities to seize.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
I'm amazed at how blind some of you appear to be.
This guy was already a legal, or "licensed" grower. He should be your shining example of how legal growers can adhere to the rule of law and provide this "medicine" for the supposed patients.
Instead, he admits to getting greedy and started trafficking on the East Coast.
You're defending him and calling him a victim?  You should be outraged that he, as others before him, have proven that legalization does NOT eliminate the crimes associated.  When you argue for legalization with this very story above...I have to wonder if you have the ability to think clearly. You certainly do not have the ability to think objectively.  Â
@flor3nc3 Valid point and well said.
whatta waste of good medicine. Too bad he felt he had to ship it back east. What, no medical customers here? (as if) I wish they would just make it legal, tax it, put some quality controls in place and check IDs. It is a drug that WORKS for many people, it shouldn't be harder to get pot than it is to get vicodin, and we are losing a lot of tax dollars that could pay for, oh, say, more sheriffs? And maybe the LC sheriffs could actually respond to car theft or break ins or robberies....
Â
silly me.
@Just Duckee Do you seriously believe if pot was legalized and taxed that the Lane County SO would get any of that tax money. Right off the top schools would get at least 50 percent, then ODOT and most other state agencies and PERS would take most of the arrest. By the time it got to law enforcement it wouldn't buy a pair of handcuffs, let alone fund any jail beds. I doubt that even the Oregon State Police would get any, they have been cutting them ever since Barbara Roberts. Also a good share of the tax money would go to the regulation of the pot growing and figureing a way to collect taxes on it. A huge amount of pot would be sold under the table and tax would never be collected. Do you really believe that our politicians and public employees would figure all this out, I don't.
Just another victim of the fascist police state and prison industrial complex. They love thier war on the people. "putting illegal immigrants in jeopardy " Cuz you know they are so precious and have way more rights than a regular citizen .
Let's see. Â Average cost of housing an inmate. Â Very brief searching seems to suggest about 45k/year. Â Times 10. Â $450,000 we get to pay because a dude sold some dude some pot. Â What a WIN for society!!! Â Â
@sm97402 I like your statistics, but how many people do you think spend a whole year in the county lock up for smoking dope. If you are saying that enough people are arrested daily to average 10 full time county inmates for 365 days and 45 K, I might believe that.
@sm97402 Pot smokers, growers and dealers have no problem with what they do. Tweekers, Junkies, robbers, rapists and murderers have the same opinion. They try to convince us that there is nothing wrong with what they do. To say that they hide their crime in the gray area of medical use is a big joke, even among them. The only thing that pot cures is not being high. This guy was shipping his pot to the east for no other purpose than to make money. He even admits it He spit into the wind and it blew back and hit him in the face. In China, They would have capped him in the back of the head on the spot That would have saved us a half a million by your math. This guy was a drug dealer, not an ideoligist. Don`t get me wrong. Nothing wrong with the guy who sits at home and smokes a bowl after a hard day to relax.  It`s gotten way beyond that and this guy is an example of that. Too bad for him. He got greedy.
 @Hunter $450,000 and monopolizing a "tweekers, junkies, robbers, rapists and murderers" spot in prison for was the point.  Can't he be ordered to pay restitution and pick up trash on the highways for 10 years?  Something useful?  It's pot.  Yeah.  The Silencers and firearms aren't good but (at the time of this post) they aren't being charged with anything outside of possession.  I'm just saying it's a shame that they can't be put to better use than sitting on bed in a cell. Â
You guys haven't lost sight of the fact that trafficking is against the law have you?
Then he lied and tried to shift the blame away from his self...pitiful.Â
It's another black-eye for those that strive to make it legal.
I would love to know what these so-called "illegal" firearms are. Machine guns and suppressors aren't illegal... you just need the paperwork and to pay off the government. =/
Maybe marijuana production and sale for a profit will be legal 10 years from now when he gets out of jail....heck, by then, heroin or methamphetamine production and sale for profit may be legal!
 @hewhoo As they should be.