Local man gets medical pot back

David Lucas may have gained a little notoriety as the first person to get medical marijuana back from Huntington Beach police after it was confiscated as evidence.

But the 43-year-old Huntington Beach resident said he just feels persecuted and fears the same thing might happen over and over.

Lucas said he received his pipes and more than 30 grams of “purple urkel” and “purps” — high-grade strains — back from the police department last week after more than a year of struggling in court. But while recent state court proceedings have given him the legal right to get his cannabis back, Lucas doesn’t like that police can still confiscate what he calls a necessary medicine.

“I feel like it’s armed robbery, in a way,” he said.

Huntington Beach police don’t have a specific policy on returning medical marijuana, Capt. Chuck Thomas said. But he said similar conflicts between different laws over whether it’s legal to return property are handled by one procedure: Wait for a court order.

“We really should rely on the court to tell us what is the appropriate thing to do with evidence and/or property,” Thomas said.

Lucas said he faces post-traumatic stress disorder from long-running family issues, and now being on his own and unemployed. He said he was lucky his late grandmother’s townhouse had its mortgage paid off, or he wouldn’t have a place to go.

“It’s family issues, being 19 and having a wife and two kids as high school dropout, then doing what I had to do for 20 years,” he said. “I was a painter before. It’s hard to do that now. The stress has been overwhelming.”

The only thing that gets him to bed at night is marijuana, Lucas said.

“I don’t like other drugs like Wellbutrin,” he said. “I just don’t like them. I’m immune to marijuana pretty much, and I don’t get high. I just smoke it at night, and it calms my nerves down.”

The property room does hold alleged medical marijuana seized from other people as well, Thomas said. But he said he hadn’t heard of any other requests to get it back so far.

“If we got one of those court orders, we would comply with it,” he said.