Pubdate: Wed, 18 Sep 2002
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2002 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Claire Cooper, Bee Legal Affairs Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

MEDICAL POT DISPUTE BOILING OVER

SANTA CRUZ -- With a helicopter circling tightly overhead and a dozen local 
officials applauding from a distance of 15 feet, medical marijuana patients 
approached a table outside City Hall on Tuesday and chose from an array of 
pot products-to-go -- muffins, tinctures and small baggies of the weed itself.

The dramatic demonstration came in response to an apparent federal 
crackdown on medical pot in California that is starting to draw protests 
from public officials from across the state.

"When our government becomes the aggressor against powerless people, I feel 
I have a higher moral obligation to stand with the powerless," said Santa 
Cruz County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt. "That's why I'm here today."

None of the officials who gathered on City Hall Plaza touched the pot, 
though, and none of the recipients consumed it at the event, which was 
provoked by the arrest two weeks ago of Valerie and Michael Corral, 
founders of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. The couple, who 
helped write Proposition 215, the medical marijuana law passed by voters in 
1996, have not been charged.

Federal agents destroyed the collective's farm. A week later, federal 
agents raided a pot collective in Sebastopol, confiscating 3,454 plants. 
Robert Schmidt faces federal charges of manufacturing and intending to 
distribute pot and assaulting a federal officer in connection with the 
Sebastopol raid.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws counts 23 
federal raids in the state in the past year against large and small pot 
suppliers, sometimes after they've been acquitted by local juries.

Richard Meyer, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in San 
Francisco, refused to confirm or deny the presence of federal agents at or 
above the hourlong Santa Cruz event Tuesday, which was attended by about 30 
gaunt WAMM members, at least 100 pot patients bused in from around the 
state and almost as many media representatives. Meyer also declined to 
comment on possible DEA reprisals but said he was "shocked and appalled 
that elected city officials would choose to just flaunt federal law."

The crowd on City Hall Plaza didn't see it that way. They waved signs 
calling for "state's rights" and "health, not war."

Although the state Supreme Court has recognized Proposition 215 and local 
officials have worked to implement it in Santa Cruz, Sonoma and some other 
counties, the drug remains illegal under federal law and a 2001 U.S. 
Supreme Court ruling.

That conflict has produced some tense relationships between federal and 
California authorities.

"I don't want any DEA people in my county," Norman Vroman, the district 
attorney in Mendocino County, said in an interview. "I will not cooperate 
with any DEA people in my county."

After the DEA raided a cooperative in San Francisco last year, District 
Attorney Terence Hallinan and three county supervisors joined pickets 
outside a luncheon speech by DEA Chief Asa Hutchinson.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision, DEA agents have been swooping in all 
over California -- slashing crops, making arrests or threatening forfeiture 
proceedings against property.

The raids usually have been undertaken without informing local authorities 
and in some cases over their strong objections.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer this month wrote to U.S. Attorney 
General John Ashcroft and Hutchinson, asking for a meeting of federal, 
state and local officials to discuss what he called the DEA's "punitive 
expeditions" against growers who are following state law. Federal-state 
cooperation in crime-fighting was in jeopardy, Lockyer warned.

At the Santa Cruz demonstration, a statement was read from Lockyer 
criticizing the federal government for "targeting people who were acting 
consistently with the direction of California voters."

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Mark Tracy, who stayed away from the event 
Tuesday, said in an interview: "I think there's been a very uniform 
frustration at the local law-enforcement level, no matter who you talk to 
in the state, about the lack of movement to put together coherent law 
(that) separates this medical issue from criminal use."

Despite such pleas for clarification of the federal role, many officials 
say the DEA's marijuana policy has become murkier rather than clearer.

Mike Ramsey, the district attorney in Butte County, which enforces a 
six-plant limit, said, "The federal guidelines that we've been used to all 
these years is that they're not interested in anything under 100 plants."

Nevertheless, in August, Butte County sheriff's officers stood eyeball to 
eyeball with federal agents in a six-plant pot patch in Oroville while 
Ramsey was on the phone with John Vincent, the U.S. attorney in Sacramento, 
urging him to call off the DEA.

According to Ramsey, Vincent told him "that this was contraband -- they 
could not leave it."

"After that," Ramsey said, "I have instructed our folks in the field that 
the DEA is not to tag along unless it is clearly a huge grow that would 
meet federal standards."

Officials elsewhere, including Gary Lacy, the district attorney in El 
Dorado County, where the DEA confiscated thousands of records from an 
agency that provided doctor's referrals to marijuana patients, said they 
weren't troubled by the federal agency's actions.

Other county prosecutors, while unwilling to criticize the federal agency, 
said they just didn't like being kept in the dark.

"Minimally, they probably should have let us know when they got there," 
Sheriff Tracy said.

James Fox, the district attorney in San Mateo County, which has been 
sponsoring tests of marijuana's medical effectiveness, said, "I would be 
very concerned if the federal authorities were coming into our county 
without giving us prior knowledge because it could lead to a dangerous 
situation" if DEA agents crossed paths with local undercover agents.

"The (federal) government needs to follow whatever their mandate is," said 
Humboldt County District Attorney Terry Farmer. "(But) I wish they would be 
more respectful."
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