Ex-Doctor Smoked 30 Joints a Day: Faces 7 Years
Thirty joints a day put a New Jersey doctor away.
"I was smoking 30 joints a day and not getting much done a day," Ex Dr. Edwin Bliss Struve told Superior Court Judge David Ironson of life before his arrest last year.
Police obtained a warrant and searched his house in May 2010 and found 58 marijuana plants. "I've been cultivating them ever since I came home from the Army in '68," Struve told the Judge Ironson.
The ex-doctor pleaded guilty to marijuana plant growing and will likely be placed in a mental health program after his sentencing. He will be supervised on probation in the office's mental health department. Struve used a medical marijuana defense, contending that Struve used marijuana for glaucoma and mild brain damage.
Edwin Bliss Struve will be on probation for five years and have to regularly see a psychiatrist and take medication. Struve was a board-certified doctor of internal medicine and studied pediatrics at Harvard. The The Daily Record reports.
New Jersey's medical marijuana law allow for the use of marijuana to treat glaucoma, but the law has not yet taken effect. In addition, New Jersey law does not allow patients to grow their own. In the end, Edwin Bliss Struve wound up with a much better deal than what he was originally facing: an offer to plead guilty and take seven years or go to trial and risk doing 20.
Related Resources:
- New federal guidelines for medical marijuana (FindLaw's Blotter)
- Legalizing Marijuana Raises Concerns for Pot Growers (FindLaw's Blotter)
- Move to Legalize Marijuana Headed to California Ballot (FindLaw's Blotter)