Several dozen medical marijuana plants are growing outdoors in the backyards of two Northeast Portland houses, and it’s perfectly legal to the dismay of neighbors.
The neighbors say the legally protected plants are hurting their quality of life and some say they’re victims of the law meant to protect people who use medical marijuana.
Veronica Ault, who has lived in her house for 48 years, can see the tops of marijuana plants from her back deck growing in her neighbor’s backyard. Some of the plants are six feet tall. There are at two dozen more mature plants in the yard of the next house.
Ault and several other neighbors say the smell can be sickening.
“I get such headaches from that thing,” she said. “When it comes floating through the air, and you take a deep breath, we both get headaches from that.”
Neighbors also complain of a hum coming from at least one house all night as well as lights and voices coming from a structure they call “The Watch Tower” in one backyard.
Under Oregon law each medical marijuana grower can grow for four patients. Each patient can have six mature plants and 18 starters. That means each grower can have 96 plants going at once.
At one house, because there are two growers, it’s registered for a total of 120 plants.
A lawyer for one of the growers, Leland Berger, said “The garden is lawful and is within the limits of the medical marijuana act.”
Berger also helped write the original law that made medical marijuana legal in Oregon.
In response to a question whether he had compassion for the neighbors who say their quality of life is being degraded, Berger said, “Yeah, well again, I think that it’s the kind of neighborhood dispute that ought to be able to be resolved through some kind of mediation, and I don’t know that it’s true that they complained to my client to no avail.”
Berger said his client will work with neighbors to address their concerns.
Portland police said they are aware of these two operations and said they are going to look at them closer to make sure they’re in compliance with the law.
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