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A man arrested May 25 for allegedly possessing large quantities of marijuana for sale has the full support of his mother, who disputes several felony charges filed against her son. She says he was legally possessing marijuana to treat pain from a car crash that left him with numerous injuries.
Police have charged Pasha Kharazi, 29, for possessing marijuana for sale after he was found growing 53 pot plants in his apartment on the 500 block of Ortega Avenue. Police said they also found a pair of brass knuckles, a smoking pipe with methamphetamine residue, just over five ounces of harvested marijuana and evidence that the marijuana was going to be sold.
Pasha’s mother, Susan Kharazi, said Pasha had a doctor’s prescription for the marijuana and was growing it legally to treat chronic pain resulting from a car accident in 2000, she said. After the accident he was in a coma for six weeks and was left with his face half-paralyzed, no hearing in one ear, nerve damage, rods and screws in one of his legs, and anxiety and insomnia, among other problems.
“He’s really struggled with life since the accident,” she said.
While Kharazi does not want to dispute all of the facts of the case publicly, she spoke in a City Council meeting last week, pleading for help.
“He’s a good kid. He followed all the regulations and that’s what happened to him,” Kharazi said. “I’m hoping the chief of police will speak to me because I’d really like to get some help.”
Kharazi was able to talk to police chief Scott Vermeer at the end of the meeting.
The day of the arrest
On May 25, the landlord of Pasha’s apartment complex called police about a circuit breaker box that had been repeatedly broken into, allegedly by Kharazi. When police walked by Kharazi’s apartment the door was open and marijuana plants could be seen in the living room.
Pasha was asleep, as well as another man who was arrested, 48-year-old transient Donald Ely, who police allege to have been involved in growing the plants, though they belonged to Pasha. Ely had a $15,000 warrant for his arrest and was also charged with violating his probation.
Once awakened by a knock at the door, police say that Pasha invited them in to see his plants, and showed police his medical marijuana card. He had medical marijuana regulations posted on his walls. Police found plants in the other rooms of the apartment as well.
“The grow operation he had constructed caused significant damage to the apartment unit,” Wylie said. “He had created venting through ceilings” and the extensive lighting was “causing circuit breakers to trip throughout whole complex,” including in the laundry room.
Until recently, Santa Clara County made it clear exactly how many medical marijuana plants a medical marijuana user could have for personal use. A recent state court ruling now leaves that decision to doctors and according to police, Pasha’s doctor’s prescription did not allow him to have as many plants or harvested marijuana as he had in his apartment, police said.
Police found over 150 grams of harvested marijuana, just over five ounces, which is “a lot of marijuana,” Wylie said. “The plants were in various stages of growth, but many of them were small,” she added.
Police believe Pasha was selling the marijuana because of the amount of marijuana found, along with zip lock bags, a scale, glass jars and paperwork showing how he was pricing the marijuana for sale, Wylie said.
“The last thing we want to do is prohibit somebody from having access to medication,” Wylie said. “But to us, this wasn’t a simple use of medicinal marijuana. He had a significant growing operation and was dealing it.”
Pasha has been charged with cultivating marijuana and possession for sale, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a prohibited weapon, the brass knuckles. All are felony charges.
Pasha does not face charges for damaging the property.
Released on bail, Pasha faces a judge again on June 29.
Pasha’s mother said in a phone interview Tuesday that despite the picture painted by police, “I think we have a good case.”
“I think we have a good case.”
I agree. The meth is medical methamphetamine, the brass knuckles are for massages, the zip lock bags are for sandwiches, and the scale, well, who doesn’t like to weigh their mail before putting postage on it? The handgun and the marijuana pricing paperwork…um…those belong to Donald Ely. Yeah, that’s it.
Yep. Just like those that break laws for the far more dangerous drugs like Vicodin or Xanax, those that break the regulations for pot, no matter how benign it is, need to be punished.
This is like the person who gets a prescription for OxyContin, caving into the greed and reselling them on the black market. Actually, the oxy seller/abuser is more dangerous, but regardless of that, ya gotta play by the rules.
“He’s a good kid. He followed all the regulations and that’s what happened to him,” Kharazi said. “I’m hoping the chief of police will speak to me because I’d really like to get some help.”
53 plants. There is always another side (more likely the truth) to every story told during public comments. This is why most public input is useless. Residents feel they can mislead thinking no one will hold them accountable. This women needs a reality check.
NeitherHereNorThere: The article makes no mention of any handgun. Do you know something the MV Voice doesn’t?
PeaceLove,
No, I don’t. Either (1) the article was edited since I last read it or (2) I read something that wasn’t there.
I’ll have to go with the latter. My mistake.
pothead. why cant you get marijuana at a pharmacy if it is so useful?
Medical Pot User?
Educated people know it is:
Medical Marijuana Patient
Where is your respect?
Mark,
Name calling is very immature. Sounds like you are not educated.
When someone’s argument is reduced to name calling they have already lost. Looking at you mark.
“NeitherHereNorThere: The article makes no mention of any handgun. Do you know something the MV Voice doesn’t?”
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53 pot plants, brass knuckles, smoking pipe with meth residual, and evidence that the marijuana was going to be sold…there doesn’t need to be a handgun to connect the dots and come to the conclusion that even with a medical card for marijuana, this individual was not following even the spirit and intention of the medical marijuana law.
And that’s the danger that is being overlooked in this issue. The problem aren’t people who use marijuana because they truly think it helps them. The problem are those fooling themselves and trying to fool others that they use it for “Medicine”, when their real intentions are more sinister and disingenuous.
If sick people need it, they can get it in a pharmacy.
By the way, the article states that Mr. Kharazi was allegedly resetting the circuit breakers of the building, most likely due the circuits being overloaded due from the extensive lighting he was maintaining for growing marijuana. Resetting an overloaded breaker is good way to cause a fire. I point this out to show how secondary effects from allowing marijuana to be cultivated and grown without proper controls could lead to dangerous environments to residents, who don’t have anything to do with this issue.
1. Hardin – Without referencing the specifics of this particular case, you point out quite clearly why prohibition creates a danger to the community. When people are forced underground, basic safety suffers. This has nothing to do with any inherent danger of cannabis (which has never been credibly linked to a single death and has thousands of years of medicinal use) and everything to do with *bad public policy.*
2. Brass knuckles mean nothing in and of themselves. Young men love weapons; it doesn’t mean they intend to use them. A friend’s teenaged son got arrested for bringing a butterfly knife to school. He brought it to show his friends and play with, not to use. I’m sure lots of young men collect semi-legal or illegal knives, brass knuckles, and even nunchucks (which are deemed “inertia weapons” and banned in many places). Doesn’t mean they want to actually to use them on anyone, except in fantasy play. But I guess “brass knuckles” has an ominous ring to it on a police report.
3. Cannabis is a plant that anyone can grow for themselves, so it really isn’t appropriate (or constitutional) for the government to restrict it to pharmacies in the first place. Nevertheless, the reason it isn’t widely available to anyone who needs it is that the government has deliberately blocked research into it’s medical efficacy for decades by refusing to grant approval to researchers and withholding the only legal source of cannabis available to researchers. At the same time they block all research and decry the non-existent dangers of cannabis, the Federal government continues to supply medical cannabis to a small number of patients.
4. “After the accident he was in a coma for six weeks and was left with his face half-paralyzed, no hearing in one ear, nerve damage, rods and screws in one of his legs, and anxiety and insomnia, among other problems.”
A little reality check: A serious medical cannabis patient needs a HUGE amount of medicine, an amount that would probably seem ridiculously excessive to people who think a joint a week is heavy use. The article doesn’t say how many, if any, of the “plants” were mature, how many were starters, etc. The Federal government supplies their patients with 300 marijuana cigarettes every 25 days, over 6 pounds per year. A patient with Mr. Kharazi’s level of physical disability needs a huge amount of medicine.
5. Medical cannabis patients are allowed to grow and sell to other patients in a collective. They are legally allowed to recoup their expenses and their time. The fact that Mr. Kharazi allegedly had evidence he was selling does not mean he was violating either the spirit or the letter of the law. If people couldn’t grow or sell cannabis for medical purposes, where would the dispensaries get the medicine for their hundreds of patients?
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The people of California voted overwhelmingly 14 years ago to allow cannabis to be used as medicine. When slavery was abolished, it didn’t continue for 14 years while local city councils decided how to set people free. When laws against interracial marriage were declared unconstitutional it didn’t take 14 years for local officials to decide how they would allow blacks and whites to marry. The sick and suffering of Mountain View deserve to be embraced and supported, not harassed and marginalized.
“Police say 53 pot plants was too many”
The subheading says it all. Since when is it okay for the police to be making medical judgements about patients and their medicine?
Oh my…..you’ve left me truly speechless.
In all seriousness, your expository above really does drive home all the salient points I’ve been trying to make about the logic used to defend medicinal marijuana, if only indirectly.
My only comment would be concerning this quote,
” 2. Brass knuckles mean nothing in and of themselves. Young men love weapons; it doesn’t mean they intend to use them. A friend’s teenaged son got arrested for bringing a butterfly knife to school. He brought it to show his friends and play with, not to use. I’m sure lots of young men collect semi-legal or illegal knives, brass knuckles, and even nunchucks (which are deemed “inertia weapons” and banned in many places). Doesn’t mean they want to actually to use them on anyone, except in fantasy play. But I guess “brass knuckles” has an ominous ring to it on a police report.”
Mr. Kharazi was in spitting distance of being a 30 year-old MAN, not an adolescent, not a teenager, a full grown ADULT. At that age, the only person I would expect to be wielding “inertia weapons” is this individual,
http://www.topnews.in/light/files/bruce_lee.jpg
and EVEN he would draw my suspicion if he had them in his possession along with 53 pot plants, a smoking pipe with meth residual, and evidence that the marijuana was going to be sold…
Hardin said: Oh my…..you’ve left me truly speechless.
I wish. 😉
I don’t know when Mr. Kharazi got his brass knuckles; perhaps he acquired them when he was 17 and still had them lying around. I still maintain the fact they were in the house sounds ominous on a police report but does not in and of itself mean anything in the real world.
Re 53 plants: The article makes no mention of how many if any of the “plants” were full grown, how many were starters or any other critical information. Medical cannabis patients are allowed to grow whatever they need, and serious patients with the kind of physical damage Mr. Kharazi sustained in his near-fatal accident often need A LOT OF CANNABIS.
Unlike pharmaceutical drugs (which kill 100,000+ Americans per year), cannabis has never caused a single documented death from overdose or allergic reaction. The physical and mental side-effects are far less drastic and debilitating than those of pharmaceutical drugs. A recent long-term study found no increase in mortality even among heavy cannabis users. Cannabis is certainly the safest therapeutically active substance if you need large quantities over time.
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Hardin: I’d love to meet with you in person to see if we can find some common ground on the issue. Please email me if you’re interested: magicpeacelove at gmail.