Pubdate: Tue, 15 May 2001 Source: California Lawyer (CA) Copyright: 2001, The Daily Journal Corporation Contact: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1658 Website: http://www.dailyjournal.com/caLawyer/ Author: John Roemer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/kubby.htm (Kubby, Steve) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) MARIJUANA USERS STRIKE BACK Prosecutors Feel The Sting Of Prop. 215. It was bad enough for prosecutors who opposed Prop. 215 to lose by more than 10 percentage points. But now, five years after its passage, the law that legalizes the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is being used as a club to threaten the careers of DAs across the state. The strategy has been most effective in Marin County. There District Attorney Paula Kamena is facing a recall election on May 22 for allegedly harassing legitimate marijuana users. Also, in Placer County signatures were being collected to hold a recall election for DA Bradford Fenocchio, but then the organizers of the effort agreed to a 30-day "cooling off" period after Fenocchio agreed not to prosecute any more medicinal users. Meanwhile, other DAs facing similar threats include El Dorado County's Gary T. Lacy, Shasta County's McGregor Scott, Calavaras County's Peter H. Smith, and Sonoma County's J. Michael Mullins. What's going on here? The question leads very quickly to Steve Kubby, a pot activist and former Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate who, while fending off marijuana cultivation charges, started the American Medical Marijuana Association last year with the goal of pressuring law enforcement officials to leave medical marijuana users alone. But his recall-the-DA strategy has clearly taken this effort one giant step further. And along the way, he's managed to form some unlikely alliances with fiscal conservatives who worry about the cost to taxpayers of any civil lawsuits that might arise from ill-advised drug raids. "We're trying to empower citizens to hold public officials accountable," Kubby says. "Now I'm constantly getting inquiries about how to start recalls elsewhere." "It's a very disturbing development," acknowledges Lawrence Brown, the executive director of the California District Attorneys Association. "We're making a good faith effort to interpret a poorly written law, and dissatisfaction with that shouldn't trigger recalls." One often-expressed complaint about the law is that it fails to specify how much marijuana a legitimate user can possess. "These people want you to believe this is about medical marijuana," says Marin County's Kamena, who's now fighting for her political life. "It is not. This is about the rule of law and the entire legal process. "Oddly enough, when the recall fight started in Marin it had nothing to do with marijuana. Instead, the controversy was about a series of divorce cases that allegedly betrayed the biases of four superior court judges and Kamena, who successfully prosecuted criminal charges against one woman for attempting to kidnap her daughter in an especially contentious custody case. The judges were eventually spared. However, energized by allegations of overzealous prosecutions in more than 30 medical marijuana cases-cases that were later dropped-the cannabis advocates managed to get enough signatures to force a recall vote on Kamena. "We're not looking for payback here," says Kubby, who's often accused of playing hardball. "We're not vindictive. If we could work in good faith with law enforcement to stop the raids and arrests on sick people, we'd be happy to hold back." But at this point restraint doesn't appear likely on either side. All of this puts the state's attorney general, Bill Lockyer, in an awkward position. On the one hand, he supported Prop. 215, and more recently he filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the medical necessity defense in prescription pot cases. Yet he also supports Kamena in her recall battle in Marin. "The AG has been clear," insists his spokesperson, Nathan Barankin. "He supports medical marijuana, but he thinks Prop. 215 was so poorly drafted that it puts local law enforcement, including district attorneys, in an impossible position." That, Barankin adds, is why Lockyer has pushed so hard, since becoming attorney general, for legislation to clarify implementation. MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk