For Portland's dope king, love and mistrust

By Nigel Duara, Associated Press January 1, 2012 (excerpts)

Paul Stanford had lived a life of error, missteps and regrets, one laden with betrayals and failure. Then, on Nov. 3, 1998, Oregon voters approved the medicinal use of marijuana.

And in this way he was saved.

Paul Stanford's business is medical marijuana, and he is the nation's leading gateway to the drug. In Oregon, Hawaii, Michigan and three other states where it's legal, he charges a small fee for access to friendly doctors. People walk in as customers and leave, mostly, as patients.

It's an idea that has garnered him thousands of dollars — or, depending on who you believe, millions. His Hemp & Cannabis Foundation has established clinics or traveling practices in 20 cities in six states, with plans to expand. In 13 years, Stanford, 50, has climbed out of a hole of debt and into the warm lap of the nation's medical marijuana community….

But there is another side to Stanford. Creditors say he has deceived them, the government says he's a tax dodger; charged with felonies, he has pleaded down to lesser offenses. He has filed for bankruptcy at least twice. For at least three years, he paid off his personal bills with money from the foundation, and when the feds found out, he simply gave up the foundation's nonprofit status.

When cornered, time and again, Stanford wriggles his way out. His most recent legal problem, a state court matter that took him to a rainy corner of Oregon in the spring, ended with a deal, too: As punishment for avoiding personal income taxes for two years, he paid more than $10,000 and was sentenced to 160 hours of community service.

For the moment, he has quieted his creditors and worked out a deal with the IRS. He presses onward; he next plans to expand his business into Nevada.

But the questions persist: Is Paul Stanford the beleaguered-yet-sincere advocate for marijuana that he presents himself to be? Or is he something else?…

"He's a great man," said 59-year-old Michael Harris of Portland, dressed in a tattered brown leather jacket, his stringy white hair in an unruly knot. "He's doing great things."

Indeed, to some dope enthusiasts, Stanford is something of a savior. It was he who brought the medical marijuana law from theory to practice, the one who went beyond the idea of asking patients' personal physician for permission to use marijuana and instead, simply brought marijuana-friendly doctors to them.

These are the folks Stanford has inspired in 30 years of marijuana activism. But he's angered others, among them hopeful venture capitalists left empty-handed, pro-marijuana political donors who feel cheated and fellow medical-marijuana campaigners who insist Stanford's motives are impure.

Stanford, a former member of the far-left Youth International Party — the Yippies — started down this road when he drove to a smoke-in on his 18th birthday in Washington, D.C. By 1980, he was in college in Washington state and running legalization drives there.

He moved to Oregon in the mid-1980s. Here, it's worth considering how a novice computer science major rose to such a high station among medical marijuana advocates. It began with the boot of a police officer plowing through the lock on his apartment's front door in 1986.

Stanford, joint in hand, was caught growing pot. He served five months probation, and forged ahead with plans to legalize marijuana in Oregon.

In 1989, Stanford founded a hemp importation business. It was called Tree Free Ecopaper and it was not successful. Stanford lost a court battle when he broke his probation by traveling out of the country, and served a five-month prison sentence in 1991.

Upon his release, he returned to the business, but managed to anger investors, and lose lawsuits from people who accused him of taking money while running up debts he has yet to repay. Stanford explains it now as a simple problem of paying his employees too much and not managing expenses.

His former investors disagree.…

Getting to where he is now required Stanford to step on some toes and edge out some competitors. This is where Stanford is distinguished from others in the medical marijuana game.

He regards it as a business. Other medical marijuana providers are competitors. Marijuana cards are his supply, and he is operating in a nearly free market system.

But the people behind the medical marijuana movement don't see it as a business. It's medicine, they say, and Stanford is abusing the product.

Sandee Burbank, executive director of the pro-medical marijuana group Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse and one of the original supporters of the medical marijuana law, says Stanford's business defies the medicinal intent of the law and is concerned less with getting sick people their medicine than getting people who want weed their drug.

"This guy's been operating (as a commercial enterprise) for two or three decades," said Burbank…. (In other words, he a drug dealer.)

Stanford expanded his marijuana-certification empire beyond Oregon's borders, to Michigan, Montana, Colorado. Each time a state Legislature approves medical marijuana, it's a safe bet that Stanford will be there.

Bruce McKinney, an investor and former Microsoft programmer, would warn them to be wary. McKinney made millions in the Seattle tech market and began to donate some of it to marijuana activists. One of them was a bright upstart named Paul Stanford.

Based on a friend's referral and an article in a Seattle newspaper, McKinney gave Stanford a loan in 1999. Then, he gave him another one. By 2000, McKinney realized Stanford wasn't planning to pay him back.

What followed was a series of suits for more than $38,000. McKinney tried to seize Stanford's house, his car — anything — to no avail. He has now resigned to the fact that he'll likely never see the money.

"Paul doesn't cheat his enemies," McKinney said in an email. "He cheats his friends." ….

The IRS has no fewer than three judgments against Stanford, the largest of which was for $200,751 on Feb. 23, 2009. Stanford refused to comment on the judgment other than to say that he's on a payment plan.

The state of Oregon, meanwhile, has filed more than $33,000 in tax liens against him, which Stanford said he's close to paying back….

On July 13, an $11,000 donation was delivered to the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2012 coffers.

The source? Stanford himself, from a separate campaign account.

Unfortunately, the check bounced....

read … the rest of the article

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