The man known to many as "Gandalf" walked barefoot through pieces of broken glass and fallen wooden beams with nails sticking out.
Eight months ago, more than a dozen armed police officers stormed his remote home in Northland, New Zealand. They smashed the frames of three greenhouses he had built himself and uprooted the plants he had carefully tended - "my girls," as he called them.
For years, 66-year-old Paul Smith, a self-proclaimed "old-school hippie" with unruly gray hair and a beard worthy of the nickname Gandalf, has grown cannabis - perfecting varieties, refining the process of drying the flowers and extracting the oil.
He said he shared most of the proceeds with hundreds of New Zealanders who were in pain.
Many who sought his help, he said, were cancer patients, some in their final years. Among them were children with epileptic seizures. Diabetics, amputation or transplant patients, and people suffering from arthritis, Parkinson's, gout, sciatica, or herniated discs somehow found their way to his home number. He meticulously recorded each conversation in a red notebook.
Smith is one of the growers known in New Zealand as "green fairies" - growers and suppliers of medical cannabis who operated outside the law for years, until the country legalized marijuana for medical purposes in 2020.
Legalization brought a whole host of regulations for growers and distributors, including fees, permits, and other requirements that can cost entrepreneurs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most growers continued to operate in the shadows, and many of their customers continued to contact them until law enforcement began to intervene.
The medicinal properties of cannabis derivatives are still under-researched and inconclusive. But some users of Smith's products say they, or their loved ones, have experienced significant relief.
One of the packages Smith sent was intercepted last year, leading to a police raid in February. He now faces charges of growing, possessing and selling cannabis and cannabis oil.
The criminal case against Smith has turned him into a symbol of the struggle between advocates for marijuana legalization and patients, many of whom said he helped them in times of great need - for free or for minimal compensation.
His supporters are organizing protests during the trial and raising money for his defense.
"It's disgusting that the true pioneers of this industry are simply being pushed out. Not just pushed out, but persecuted," said Mitch Harris, who described how his daughter August, who is deaf, blind and has developmental disabilities, benefited from Smith's oil, which reduced the frequency and severity of her epileptic seizures.
For many of Smith's clients, the cost and effort required to obtain a legal prescription and find an authorized distributor was a barrier large enough to simply forgo treatment.
The medicinal properties of cannabis derivatives are still under-researched and inconclusive. But some users of Smith's products say they, or their loved ones, have experienced significant relief.
Delia Kwedek said Smith's oil restored her late husband's appetite and energy in his final years battling bladder cancer before he passed away in 2023, making him strong enough to take him on a final trip to the scenic South Island. Once, when their house caught fire during her husband's illness, Smith, she recalled, sent them not only his product for free, but also NZ$500 (about US$280) in aid.
She can't believe he's being judged instead of acknowledged.
"I never thought for a moment that the police would pursue him," she said. "He should be knighted for the amount of pain and suffering he has helped alleviate."
Smith, who was nicknamed Gandalf long ago at a costume party, had no intention of becoming a paramedic.
He said he grew up in the 1960s without much adult supervision, moving from one relative to another, spent part of his childhood in an orphanage, and dropped out of school at 14. At one point, he became a vegan and grew his own food. In his youth, he experimented with LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline, and he had been growing marijuana occasionally since he was nineteen.
After meeting his wife Karen, with whom he has three children and several grandchildren, he moved to a farm about a half-hour drive from the nearest paved road. The family hunted wild goats and the occasional pig, and lived mostly on what they produced themselves.
Cannabis is just one of the many plants he grew on his remote property. In the decades before he turned to medical cannabis, Smith was prosecuted three times for growing marijuana and sentenced to house arrest or community service.
About ten years ago, he met Pearl Schomburg, who had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for years. Her friend gave her some of Smith's oil, and Ms Schomburg said she felt immediate and profound relief from severe, chronic pain. She told her friend that she couldn't afford it on her disability benefits; a 25-milliliter bottle cost about 100 New Zealand dollars, or about 57 U.S. dollars. At the time, she recalled, Smith gave her the oil for free.
"I don't know of any other 'green fairy' in New Zealand that works like him," she said.
Around this time, Ms. Schomburg began publicly advocating for the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes. When patients came to her for information, she began referring them to Smith.
Smith said messages from people asking for help began piling up on his answering machine every time he was away for just a few hours. He said he began working long hours, seven days a week, to meet the demand.
"There are a lot of people out there who need help, and the healthcare system is seriously failing them," he said.
Ms. Schomburg said that as a 73-year-old great-grandmother with an autoimmune disease, she believed it was safe to speak openly about her experience with cannabis. She thought that Mr. Smith, a grandfather who has dedicated himself to helping patients in pain, had no reason to fear prosecution.
She added that it had always been clear to her that Smith, a man who could barely bear to wear shoes, would never "jump through the hoops" of bureaucracy to seek legal permission. "These people don't want to put on white coats and protective clothing," Schomburg said.
Karen Smith, his wife of more than forty years, said she had always feared a possible police raid. She sat in the same spot earlier this year as officers searched their property.
"At the end of the day, the only thing we can do is look at how many lives we've changed - and that makes it all worthwhile, especially when I think about those little children," she said. "The benefits far outweigh the fear I felt."
Smith is due to appear in court in Wangari in December.
A few months after the raid, in the chaos of the remains of the greenhouses that the police had destroyed, he noticed a small cannabis bud poking out of the ground. The stray seed had survived the police, several frosts, and months of neglect.
"It's a good, hardy variety," Smith said, pointing to a plant that had grown a few inches. "A defiant plant. It's giving the authorities the middle finger."
Translation: NB
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