High Stakes

Marijuana has twice played a role in bringing significant changes to the life of Barb Agro.

The first time was a blessing.

A former police dispatcher, the 71-year-old great-grandmother from Lake Orion suffers from arthritis in both of her knees. 

"It's really bad," she says.

Because she's allergic to aspirin, she used Tylenol to ease the pain for years. "But the amount I had to take was so much," she says. "I worried about it damaging my kidneys."

Then her son Nick gave her a brownie made with marijuana when she visited him at his home in Colorado several years ago. And her life immediately changed for the better.

"It was like a godsend," is how she describes the effect the controversial medicine had on her. "It was amazing. I could sleep without any problem because I wasn't in any pain."

So she persuaded her husband Sal to give it a try. A retired GM worker, he'd also spent four decades coaching youth sports. 

"That gruff Italian guy who's really a big marshmallow," is the way he's described in one newspaper article.

But all those years of throwing footballs and baseballs took their toll. He had bone spurs on his neck and shoulders. "He couldn't lift his arms over his head," says Barb.

The pot worked for him too. 

So the views of this hard-nosed coach and his wife, who had spent years working around cops, changed.

"Talk about doing a complete turnaround," Barb says. 

Like most parents, they had taken a tough stance regarding drugs when their three sons were in their teens. "We told them we better not find any of that stuff in the house," recalls Barb, talking with the Metro Times from her winter home in Wildwood, Fla.

Now she's a convicted felon, and her husband of 45 years is dead from a heart attack suffered a week after Oakland County narcotics officers wearing masks and wielding weapons raided their home and confiscated 17 plants the Agros believed were being grown legally under the medical marijuana law voters approved in November 2008.

As the third anniversary of that ballot measure's passage is being marked this week, medical marijuana proponents are trying to figure out how to deal with a series of setbacks, as municipalities, police, prosecutors and the courts do their best to put a chokehold on the law.

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