HAYES TOWNSHIP, MI — A mid-Michigan man who was arrested and charged with illegal marijuana sales last week said he uses marijuana to manage chronic pain and wants to help others who are in pain gain access to the plant.

The half-brother of Anna Nicole Smith, Donnie Hogan said he believes marijuana is a safe alternative to narcotic painkillers.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” said Hogan, 38.

He and his wife, Billie Jo, owners of Mid-Michigan Care Givers Club, were arrested Thursday, June 14, and charged with the illegal sale of marijuana.

Hogan said he has a hereditary condition that causes chronic pain, and he suspects his half-sister, Anna Nicole Smith, could have had the same illness.

Hogan said he believes state law allows the business to facilitate transfers between caregivers, aka growers, and medical marijuana patients.

The club is in Clare County’s Hayes Township.

“We’re strictly nonprofit,” he said. “Any caregiver can use it. It’s a place where a caregiver can get information, learn to grow and get clones.”

Club policy: Donnie Hogan

A marijuana cardholder walks in.

“I’m out of meds,” he says. “I have $200 to donate.”

The club contacts one of its members to see who can supply the weed.

The patient and caregiver meet at the club and make an exchange.

If the caregiver chooses to do so, he can make a donation to the club.

The club also gets donated marijuana that is sometimes given away to patients in need for free.

It’s also where a caregiver can accept a donation in exchange for a gram or a few ounces of marijuana.

Hogan said the club does not take a cut of the transactions, but it does accept donations of cash and other items, including air hockey tables, from the 80-plus members in the community.

“And growing,” he said.

He expects a lot of them will be at the courthouse as his case proceeds. The couple is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in the 80th District Court on June 25.

The club and its members often give free marijuana and edibles to patients in need, he said.

The arrests Thursday came after the club supplied a patient with an ounce of marijuana, Hogan said. The patient, who Hogan said he knew well, told the couple that her normal caregiver was out of town and she needed the marijuana.

After receiving the free ounce, the patient drove away from the club and was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy, Hogan said.

After speaking with the driver, officers came to the caregivers club and made the arrests, Hogan said.

During a search of the business, Hogan said deputies found two ounces of “smokeable” marijuana and one plant that was used for display at the club, he said.

At the couple’s house nearby, they found “about 2 ounces” of stems and marijuana leaf clippings, Hogan said, which he usually turns into edible items.

Hogan said he was at the business at the time of the transfer, but he was playing pool in another room.

“They took my Mustang that I paid for a long time ago with my own money,” Hogan said. “I’m not sure why they took the car or why they took me.”

The couple recently opened another caregivers club in Gladwin, and Hogan said he would like to open many more to help others in need of medication gain access to the plant.

He said medical marijuana laws in Michigan are “messed up” and confusing, adding that it seems law enforcement officials, attorneys and others close to the subject have different interpretations of how the law applies.

Many friends and medical marijuana supporters have called to show support for Hogan since the arrests, he said.

“I just want them to sup the cause,” he said. “If (police) are doing this to us, and we’re supposedly going by the book, who else are they going to go after?

“But what is the book?” Hogan said. “What’s going on here?”

Family history

Hogan is the half-brother of Anna Nicole Smith, who died Feb. 8, 2007, due to an accidental overdose.

Born Vickie Lynn Hogan and later changing her name after her first marriage, Smith did not know who her father was while growing up, Hogan said.

When she was about 23, she was modeling for Guess Jeans and hired someone to help her find out who her father was. She also found out Hogan, 17 at the time, was her half-brother, he said.

“She didn’t even tell me who she was until she flew us out to LA,” Hogan said.

She was fairly well-known in Hollywood already, he said, and soon she was picked up to pose in "Playboy."

Smith was a Playboy centerfold in June 1992 and was Playmate of the Year in 1993, Hogan said, remembering parties at the Playboy Mansion, going to MTV events and hanging out with rock stars and Playboy playmates.

He said he often would meet Smith and stay at her ranch home in Houston, where she shot some films for Playboy.

“We got to be pretty close,” he said. “We were down to earth with each other.”

Another favorite time was when Hogan went to Disneyland with Smith and her son, Daniel, who was about 7 at the time. He remembers everyone asking to take a picture with the rising star and having fun taking Daniel on many rides.

Smith started getting some offers for film roles, Hogan said, noting Smith “was kicking herself” because she chose a role in Naked Gun 33 1/3 instead of taking a role offered to star in “The Mask,” opposite a then somewhat unknown Jim Carrey.

“Me and (Anna) were pretty tight,” Hogan said. “Oh man, back in the day, when she was Playmate of the Year and all that, it was awesome as a young kid to experience that.”

After the early '90s, the two grew apart a little, Hogan said, but they still would speak occasionally.

The last time Hogan heard from Anna was in 2004, he said, when she called to say she loved him and to catch up.

Smith’s son, Daniel, died in 2006 of a drug overdose, Hogan said. Smith was dead the next year, also from an overdose.

Sometime after her death, Hogan moved to Michigan.

Hogan had been dealing with physical pain for a few years that grew more intense as he aged, he said.

It took visits to several doctors before he got the necessary test and was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, Hogan said, a long-term debilitating disease that causes inflammation of the joints between the spinal bones and the joints between the spine and pelvis, which eventually can cause spinal bones to fuse together.

Hogan was taking pills such as hydrocodone to dull the pain, but decided to switch to marijuana when he feared overdosing.

“I didn’t want to go to bed and not wake up,” he said.

The debilitating disease makes it hard for him to walk sometimes, Hogan said, and he is in constant severe pain.

“Marijuana doesn’t take the pain away, but neither do painkillers,” he said. “But (marijuana) sure takes my mind off it and makes me not want to kill myself practically.”

He wonders if Smith could have had the same condition, though he believes she never was tested for the disease, he said.

“We had a lot of things in common,” Hogan said. “She was always hurting, always in pain.”

Their father, Donald Hogan, also suffered from ankylosing spondylitis, which is hereditary.

“Marijuana definitely helps me. If she would have taken marijuana at night instead of (prescription drugs), maybe she would still be here,” Donnie Hogan said.

Related: Anna Nicole Smith's daughter asks, "Why did mommy die?"

“If she was in any pain like me, it would take a lot (of painkillers) to go to sleep,” he said.

Hogan’s great-aunt also died of an overdose.

Hogan’s wife, Billie Jo, helps him overcome the debilitation, he said. As she became involved in the world of medical marijuana, the couple decided to create the Mid-Michigan Care Givers Club. The couple believes in the club’s mission of helping those in need receive the marijuana that helps them for a variety of medical conditions.

They have been meeting with attorneys, and Hogan said he hopes his court case will lead to changes in the state’s marijuana laws.

“I want a lawyer that’s hungry, that’s gonna fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if need be,” he said.

Their arrests were followed by an arrest at another Clare County marijuana club Wednesday.

They opened the doors of the club days after their arrests, and they are in the process of opening another club in Gladwin.

“What can they really do? It’s my right,” Hogan said when asked if he is afraid that police will arrest him again on more charges. “If they want to come and get me again, come get me. I’ll just get out again.”

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