OLD TOWN – William “Billy” Waechter says he grows and smokes marijuana to help him cope with his debilitating multiple sclerosis. Authorities say his small but obvious pot growth outside his home is not only illegal but signals to others, including children, that it’s OK to use marijuana.

On Monday, for the second time in about three years, police summoned Waechter, 45, for cultivating marijuana. This time they seized 15 marijuana plants that Waechter freely admitted he had been growing in a red-and-white planter behind his carport outside his house.

Assisted by police from Orono and the Penobscot Indian Nation, Old Town police executed a search warrant at about 7:20 p.m. at Waechter’s home at 14 French St., a modest white house with red trim.

Authorities were there about an hour, at which time they uprooted the plants outside the home and took marijuana pipes and other paraphernalia from inside the home, Old Town police Officer Seth Burnes said.

Authorities charged Waechter with cultivating marijuana, sale and use of drug paraphernalia and possession of a usable amount of marijuana. Under a new law, the cultivation law was upgraded to a felony because the marijuana plants were found within 1,000 feet of a playground, considered a safe zone, the officer said.

Despite all the police attention, Waechter insisted Monday night that he pays taxes, doesn’t cause trouble and “I am not a bad person.”

Formerly a self-employed building contractor, Waechter said he can’t walk now and uses a scooter to get around, including down the ramp to his carport where he tended the marijuana plants.

He first came to realize in 2000 that he had MS, a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system for which there is no cure.

Although he has smoked marijuana on and off since the early 1970s, Waechter said that a friend in 2003 recommended he try marijuana for MS.

Smoking it doesn’t help with the effects of MS, but it leaves him relaxed and at peace, helping him cope with his struggles with the disease.

Maine is one of 11 states that permits the medical use of marijuana with a prescription.

But a doctor refused to give Waechter a prescription for marijuana, he said, so he began growing it himself. After his conviction and $200 fine in 2004 for cultivating marijuana, Waechter said he stopped, but resumed earlier this year.

He said he wants people to look at the big picture.

“I really think that this is an issue that American society needs to look at,” he said.

Authorities are also talking about the big picture.

Burnes said even with a prescription for medical marijuana, Waechter can’t grow it, something he was well aware of in light of his previous conviction.

The plants were easily visible from the street traveled by children and teenagers and a neighbor said Monday that Waechter would boast about smoking marijuana.

Burnes questioned what signal the police would be sending to young people if they ignored the marijuana, which is considered a gateway drug, one that leads to other, more severe drug habits.

“It’s obviously not something that we are going to take lightly and let happen,” Burnes said.