Will Foster

Will Foster, a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer and father of two, was sentenced to 93 years in prison for charges relating to the 25-plant medical marijuana garden he grew in a locked room in his basement.

Weldon Angelos

Twenty-five-year-old Weldon Angelos was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling several hundred dollars' worth of marijuana to a police informant on three separate occasions ' his first offenses. Because he had a gun during the commission of his crimes, though did not use or brandish it, he received a sentence that even his judge called "unjust, cruel, and even irrational."

Webster Alexander

In January 2003, 19-year-old Webster Alexander of Alabama received a 26-year prison sentence for selling $350 of marijuana within three miles of a school. A judge later reduced Alexander's sentence to one year in prison, one year of probation, and community service, but the initial 26-year sentence made international headlines for its severity.

Unnamed Florida college student

On June 6, 2003, a 19-year-old Alachua County, Florida, college student was raped by his cellmate as he served the first of four weekend sentences for delivering marijuana, a felony offense. The student's cellmate was a violent offender in jail awaiting trial on sexual battery charges; the two men shared a cell because of jail overcrowding.

Tyrone Brown

Tyrone Brown served 17 years of a life sentence for testing positive for marijuana while on probation for a $2 stickup committed when he was 17. No one involved was ever able to explain the severe penalty.

The Naulls Family

Ronald Naulls already had two successful careers when he established the Healing Nations Collective in Corona in 2006 to save fellow patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine. Although it was widely considered a model medical marijuana dispensary, DEA agents invaded the Naulls family's home and businesses on July 17, 2007. They arrested Ronald and turned his three young daughters over to county child protective services, which charged him and his wife with child endangerment.

Suzanne Pfeil

Suzanne Pfeil is a paraplegic who suffers from severe pain and muscle spasms linked to post-polio syndrome. On September 5, 2002, more than 20 armed federal agents raided her medical marijuana hospice, holding assault rifles to the heads of patients and their caregivers. When Pfeil was unable to stand, the agents handcuffed her behind her back and left her on the bed for several hours.

Roni and Charity Bowers

On April 20, 2001, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ordered the Peruvian Air Force to shoot down a plane suspected of smuggling drugs out of Peru. The plane was carrying not drugs but American religious missionaries Jim and Roni Bowers; Roni and seven-month-old daughter Charity died in the shooting.

Robin Prosser

Robin Prosser, of Missoula, Montana, used medical marijuana to treat an immunosuppressive disorder similar to lupus. Despite spending years in a successful fight to help establish a medical marijuana law in her state, federal authorities continued interfering with her access to medicine. On Oct. 18, 2007, after spending months in excruciating pain and unable to acquire the type and quality of medical marijuana she needed, Prosser took her own life.

Rhiannon Kephart

In January 2005, 18-year-old Rhiannon Kephart received second- and third-degree burns to her chest and stomach when police set off a stun grenade during a drug raid. Kephart was not a target of the investigation.