NEWS

Ozark couple appears on pro-marijuana billboard

Rance Burger
RBURGER@NEWS-LEADER.COM

OZARK – Marijuana cost him an arrest, legal fees and his business, but Daryl Bertrand insists it saved his life. As he and his wife attempt to rebuild and provide for their family, they want to fight for the drug they say could keep Daryl’s pain at bay.

Daryl and Patricia Bertrand can be found living in Ozark raising their two teenage children. Their faces appear on an advertisement for Show-Me Cannabis, an organization seeking for a prohibition on marijuana to be lifted in Missouri.

Daryl Bertrand suffers from degenerative disc disease and stenosis of the spine. To date, he has undergone three spinal surgeries and expects to have more. He took prescription painkillers to manage the pain from his spinal disorders but says he suffered potentially deadly side effects.

“I can’t take anything; my liver shuts down,” Bertrand said. “On the second liver failure, they finally attributed it to the narcotic, the medication.”

Bertrand started growing marijuana in early 2007 when he thought his options to treat the pain in his spine had been exhausted. He says using marijuana improved his quality of life.

“It was keeping me working, it was keeping me a functioning member of society, along with my chiropractor,” Bertrand said.

Bertrand worked through his symptoms for much of his life, but he broke his back in a slip-and-fall accident in July 2009 and had a spinal fusion in April 2010.

Bertrand says he inhaled marijuana using a vaporizer, which uses hot air to extract the oils found in ground marijuana and convert the oils into vapor, rather than by smoking it. He says he made his doctors aware that he used marijuana to manage pain.

“I did not hide my cannabis use from my doctors,” Bertrand said.

Search and seizure

Four days after Bertrand returned home from the hospital, officers from the COMET Drug Task force served a search warrant on a building the Bertrands owned in Ozark.

The couple ran their own business selling playground equipment from a location on Third Street in Ozark. They also made their home in the building and kept a room for growing marijuana in the attic.

On May 20, 2010, officers searched the building and found 47 marijuana plants, but Bertrand says they were looking for money they didn’t find. Bertrand says he believes police searched the building to bolster their task force’s budget with forfeited drug money.

“The raid was more about asset forfeiture potential than it was the cannabis I was growing because of how angry they got and the threats they made to us over there not being a significant sum of cash for them to seize, because I wasn’t dealing it (in exchange for cash),” Bertrand said.

Bertrand maintains the marijuana he grew in his home was for his own use and that he didn’t sell processed marijuana or the plants.

Court records show Daryl and Patricia Bertrand were each charged with the class B felony of producing a controlled substance. In separate court cases, they entered guilty pleas to their original charges to avoid prison time. Daryl received an eight-year suspended prison sentence and was placed on probation; Patricia was sentenced to five years, and her sentence was also suspended. Their probationary periods will both expire this year.

While they avoided prison, news of the arrests and convictions led them to close their playground equipment business.

“There was just no way the business could survive,” Patricia Bertrand said.

Couple’s path to involvement

The court battles led the Bertrands to learning more about Show Me Cannabis, and the two became activists for the decriminalization of marijuana and legal reform of laws regulating the drug.

“If I had never been raided, I more than likely would not be an activist at all,” Daryl Bertrand said.

“I don’t use marijuana,” Patricia Bertrand said. “I was just as guilty in the eyes of the law as he was.”

As their activity with the Show Me Cannabis group grew, other members asked them about being part of an advertising campaign.

“It wasn’t an easy decision for us to do the billboard,” Daryl Bertrand said.

The billboard near the 73 mile marker of Interstate 44 was installed just before Memorial Day. Three weeks later, Patricia Bertrand says she and her husband haven’t faced much backlash.

“We have kids — you know, the negative attention — but I don’t think really we’ve faced any of the fears we thought we would,” Patricia Bertrand said.

Before the billboard went up, Daryl Bertrand says Lamar Advertising wanted some confirmation from doctors that the message on the ad could be defended from false advertising complaints.

“This billboard isn’t something that’s fly-by-night. We had to provide, from certified medical professionals, documentation that (marijuana) saved my life in order to put that billboard up,” Bertrand said.

Show Me Cannabis looking to 2016

The Bertrands plan to continue pushing for marijuana law reform.

“There’s tens of thousands of people similar to me in this state, with some sort of medical condition that this plant will help,” Daryl Bertrand said.

Bertrand qualifies for some disability payments now based on his spinal conditions. Patricia Bertrand holds a college degree in business management. Nine months ago, she landed her first job since the arrests, office work through a temporary staffing agency.

Show Me Cannabis plans to file an initiative petition with the Missouri attorney general seeking a marijuana decriminalization proposal for election ballots in 2016. The group would need to collect approximately 160,000 signatures on an initiative petition before voters would be allowed to consider a ballot proposal.

Show Me Cannabis has plans to hold town hall meeting in Ozark featuring a debate between proponents and opponents of the legalization of marijuana use. A similar forum in Branson held May 30 brought in approximately 100 audience members.

Daryl Bertrand says he hasn’t used marijuana since his arrest in 2010. If he violates conditions of his probation, Bertrand says he will have to serve eight years in prison. He walks with a cane and says he struggles with pain in his spine.

“I suffer. I’m totally miserable,” Bertrand said. “I’m too afraid (to use other painkillers).”

Bertrand says he uses prescription painkillers on rare occasions when the pain in his back becomes extremely severe. He estimates he has taken prescription pain medication three times in the past year.