Does it make any sense at all to come in and bust down the doors of someone dying from cancer who is simply trying to prolong their life? What harm are they causing trying to beat their ailment while following the guidelines of the law as closely as possible? What is it going to take to stop the government from coming in and harassing legal marijuana patients?

Bob Crouse has leukemia. He used to have medical marijuana. Then the police came to his house and took it away. Today, he faces felony charges for cultivating marijuana with the intent to distribute.

He has a medical marijuana card as well as a doctor’s recommendation to grow as many as 75 plants. He needs that much, he says, because smoking the occasional joint or eating the occasional brownie has never been known to cure cancer. What many proponents of medical marijuana believe does cure cancer–at least in some cases–is the oil that can be created by boiling a pound or more of bud at a time and reducing that pound to about one ounce of oil. Many in the medical marijuana field swear that ingesting about a gram a day of this oil–commonly known as phoenix tears–can have a profound effect on cancer and some other serious medical conditions.

“I was just trying to grow the quantity of medicine I needed to medicate myself. I never had any intent to distribute,” Crouse told the Colorado Independent. “They think I was part of an underground network, but I think I was within my rights. They thought I was a criminal. I tell you it was real intimidating when they showed up with eight or ten agents. I’m a sixty-three-year-old leukemia patient fighting for the right to fight for my life.”

Crouse says it wasn’t just his medicine the police took in May, it was also his therapy.

“You can lose yourself in a little garden. When I was in there working with my plants I would forget all about what was going on inside my body,” he recalls.