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Former Marine wants marijuana plants back

A former Marine and 1991 Persian Gulf War veteran is demanding that Denver-area police return dozens of marijuana plants they seized from his basement.

Kevin Dickes, 39, a construction worker and former lance corporal, could have faced up to six years in prison after Aurora, Colo., police raided his home April 27 and charged him with a felony count of cultivating marijuana.

But last week, a Colorado prosecutor dropped the charge after confirming that Dickes is a licensed grower of medical marijuana.

Dickes says he suffers severe pain in his legs stemming from shrapnel injuries sustained in Kuwait in early 1991. He was transporting a group of Iraqi prisoners of war when one of them detonated a grenade hidden under his clothing.

Dickes said he prefers marijuana to other pharmaceuticals. “It keeps me off the Percodine, and it’s better than OxyContin,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

“It may not relieve your pain, but it helps your mood swings — if you’re down, it will bring you up.”

On Wednesday, Dickes is going to state court to demand that police return the plants that he grew legally.

“Colorado law requires them to keep the plants alive and safe,” said Dickes’ attorney, Robert Corry of Denver.

The precise number of plants seized remains in dispute. The Drug Enforcement Agency applies a price of $5,200 to each pound of marijuana; if that standard applies, Dickes’ plants could be worth more than $100,000, depending on the amount seized.

Dickes said he left the University of Iowa in 1989 to enlist in the Marine Corps because he “thought that was the easiest way to stay away from all the partying.” He separated in 1993, he said.

His injury did not bother him for many years, but he was recently diagnosed with a chronic vascular disease that doctors traced back to his wartime injury.

Earlier this year, Dickes took his Department of Veterans Affairs medical records to a Denver clinic, where a doctor granted him a license to grow marijuana. He said he obtained marijuana seeds from a local community group that assists medical marijuana growers.

Dickes says he tried marijuana in high school but was not a habitual smoker until recent years. He said doctors told him his lower leg will eventually require amputation.