Criminal charges against Marine veteran Kevin Dickes, 38, have been dropped, but there is still one problem that needs to be solved: he wants his plants back.

The former Marine from Aurora suffered injuries from a grenade during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm and became a state-certified marijuana patient that allows him to grow marijuana plants in his home.

The police intervened in April this year, when he was reported by a neighbor concerned of the marijuana plants in Dickes’ home. The police ultimately confiscated the plants, but following the district attorney’s dismissed charges against the legal marijuana cultivator, the veteran wants his plants returned.

In a CBS4 interview, Dickes said about his plants: “It helps with my nervousness, it helps with the pain, with my mood swings. When I’m in pain, I kind of get upset, angry; it calms me down and it’s better than narcotics.”

This is not the first time police confiscates marijuana plants from state-certified medical patients. Earlier this month, a couple with a medical marijuana card decided to sue the police department after the plants that have been returned to them were dead.

Dickes threatens to do the same: “The police officers must maintain it, must cultivate it, they must water it, feed it, preserve it.” In case his plants will not be returned to him safe and sound, he is determined to claim for $2,500 damage for each of the 71 marijuana plants confiscated.

Marijuana’s medicinal properties have been discovered 4,800 years ago, and it has been used ever since. Before the aspirin was invented, marijuana was used as a pain reliever, for migraines, insomnia or sleeping aid, analgesic, anticonvulsant, and it is currently used to treat Tourette syndrome.