When Randy Mazur saw drug task force agents using binoculars to scope out his marijuana plants from an alley near his Carlsbad home in October, he didn't freak out. That's because Mazur had a producer's license, issued by the state of New Mexico, to grow the herb.

The 60-year-old medical-marijuana patient in the spring had obtained the license to produce marijuana for distribution to other patients. He was about a month away from harvesting his first big crop from his backyard.

"I waved them over and everything was nice and polite," Mazur said. "They came around the front door and I showed them my state nonprofit paper, my corporation paper and the license. Fine and dandy."

Mazur said he even called his contact at the state Department of Health and told him what had happened.

But two days later, he had more trouble. Thieves began stealing his marijuana.

"People were hopping the fence left and right," Mazur said. "One guy almost got a piece of rebar stuck through is back. I caught him at 11 o'clock at night. He was on the other side of the fence getting ready to hop it ... and I reached over with a piece of rebar and was gonna stick him with it but my arm wouldn't reach. Then they came back at 3 a.m. and got about 15 plants, just uprooted them.

"Every other night, they would come at different hours," Mazur said. "It got to the point that somebody would come to the front door and somebody would be in the back, stripping my plants. These guys were in my yard in broad daylight looking around for plants."

About a week later, Mazur said, he got a troubling call from the Department of Health saying he actually wasn't approved to grow up to 95 marijuana plants as a producer. He had been approved to continue growing up to four mature plants and 12 seedlings for his personal use, but the state had sent him the wrong license by mistake.

The state official said the department would "send a letter to the cops saying it was our mistake," Mazur said. "He told me to get rid of everything. So I went and cut them all down."

Mazur said the error cost him time and money, and highlights the need for improvements in how the state administers its new Medical Cannabis program.

Pecos Valley Drug Task Force Commander David Edmondson, whose team had visited Mazur's house after receiving an anonymous tip, agrees.

Edmondson said his officers — who had run into this issue before — simply went away after they saw Mazur's license.

But later he was contacted by the Department of Health.

"They wanted us to go get his license on their behalf and pull the plants because he was not valid, even though they issued him a license — which we were not going to do," Edmondson said. "We are not their agents. They are regulatory. That's the problem with this statute. There is nobody regulating and making sure these people are on the up and up. Right now the only one overseeing this is somebody on the phone in Santa Fe."

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said his officers also encountered confusion during a drug raid when a suspect claimed to be a licensed producer but had more plants than the license allowed.

Solano said he supports the idea of a medical marijuana program but wishes there was another way for patients to get the drug.

"I truly believe that people should be buying it from a licensed facility, and not growing it or buying it illegally," Solano said. "I think that would solve the problem. I feel like the dispensaries should have been set up first, so we were prepared for it."

Department of Health spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer said the mistake regarding Mazur's license was an isolated incident and that the licenses issued for patient producers and nonprofit producers, which used to be very similar, have been changed.

But Dennis Garcia, a 29-year-old Rio Rancho man who applied for a license to grow marijuana for his own medicinal use, showed The New Mexican the license he was sent. It's labeled as a personal production license, but the fine print authorizes him to grow 95 plants, as if he were a nonprofit producer.

"I didn't want to take it to that point," Garcia said. "So I just kept in my limits with the four plants and 12 seedlings. But it shows that the program needs to be taken more seriously for the patient's sake."

Paul Culkin, a medical marijuana patient who has organized an advocacy group called the New Mexico Cannabis Patients Group, said he applauds the legislation that made medical marijuana legal but thinks the program needs more money.

"It's a law — just give it some funding," Culkin said. "Right now, there are no permanent employees at the Medical Cannabis program, they are two weeks behind on their voice mail and they are swamped with paperwork ... But they are afraid to have volunteers working there because of (rules governing medical privacy)."

Busemeyer said the bill that created the Medical Cannabis program in 2007 didn't have any specific funding attached to it.

She said the program has two employees and five other department employees who assist with the program as needed. New employees can't be hired, Busemeyer said, because of a hiring freeze.

"Our program has been growing significantly and we really are doing the best we can to keep up with the demand, especially considering the current budget crisis," she said.

Busemeyer said the number of patients in the program has grown to 900 from 200 since May. About 169 of those patients are from Santa Fe County.

"We have carefully worked on our regulations to make a program that is going to be viable and is going to serve patients," Busemeyer said. "And I think for the most part it's working really well. Patients are being certified to be eligible for medical marijuana and they now have a way to get it legally under state law. That was a major accomplishment for us.

"Do we still have more to learn? I'm sure we do, and we can revise our program as we think it's necessary," she said. "Part of our regulations is that we will continue to review this, and if we find that we need to change our regulations in anyway, we will make recommendations to the secretary."

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com