Pubdate: Fri, 05 Oct 2001
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2001 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Denny Walsh

SEIZED FILES SPUR LEGAL FIGHT: MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS ARE ANGRY AFTER 
DRUG AGENTS RAID THEIR OFFICE AND HOME

An attorney for an El Dorado County couple who are leaders in the struggle 
for acceptance of medical marijuana -- one a physician and the other a 
lawyer -- vowed Thursday to battle federal authorities who have targeted 
his clients.

Drug agents investigating the couple's alleged dispensation of marijuana 
raided their offices in Cool and their home in nearby Greenwood on Friday 
and carted away computer files and boxes of documents.

J. David Nick, attorney for Dr. Molly Fry and her husband, Dale Schafer, 
described the search as "outrageous" and "unprecedented" as he left the 
federal courthouse in Sacramento.

"I'll bet there has never been another time in this district when every 
file in an attorney's office was seized," Nick said. "People who are 
hard-core criminals are treated with more respect.

"The federal government wants to make the people of California submit to 
its will rather than pay attention to their will," he said, referring to 
passage of the Compassionate Use Act.

The 1996 state ballot measure permits seriously ill people to obtain and 
use marijuana for medical purposes where "recommended by a physician." But 
the manufacture, possession, distribution and sale of marijuana -- for 
whatever reasons -- remain federal crimes.

At a hearing Thursday, Nick told U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory G. Hollows 
that the seized material is covered by attorney-client and doctor-patient 
privileges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Pings countered that the files are all covered 
by the "fraud exception" to attorney-client privilege.

"They were selling marijuana recommendation certificates," Pings said. 
"Everyone who came into those offices was subject to solicitation to 
marijuana use. They were aiding and abetting possession. The government is 
entitled to know who all these people are."

Fry and Schafer estimate their client-patient roster at about 6,000, and 
the courtroom was jammed with many of them.

"They'll open those files over my dead body," Nick told them.

A person who formerly worked in the couple's offices began giving 
information about them to Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent 
Brian Keefe in August, according to the agent's affidavit in support of a 
search warrant.

The informant "provided the information in exchange for consideration at 
his sentencing on a pending criminal charge," the affidavit says.

Before being permitted to speak to Fry, clients meet with Schafer, who 
advises them on procedures to follow when arrested and how to avoid 
prosecution, the witness told the agent.

Ailments for which Fry recommends marijuana include anxiety, insomnia, 
asthma, premenstrual syndrome and restless leg syndrome, the affidavit says.

As related in the affidavit, the witness told Keefe, that Fry and Schafer 
charge $150 a visit, which they refer to as a "medical/legal consultation." 
They sometimes see as many as 100 clients in a week.

Additionally, according to the affidavit, Fry and Schafer grow marijuana in 
the garage of their Greenwood home. Schafer sells processed marijuana and 
growing kits to clients who come to the offices to get recommendation 
certificates from Fry.

The witness' account later was corroborated by an undercover investigation 
that yielded a recorded conversation in which Fry describes the couple's 
manufacture and sales of marijuana, according to the affidavit.

It also says that surveillance has confirmed an outdoor marijuana garden at 
the couple's residence and another garden in a greenhouse on the property.

Fry, a graduate of the University of California, Davis, Medical School, was 
interviewed for a February article in Praxis Post, an Internet medical journal.

She told the reporter, Liz Scherer that she lost both breasts to cancer. 
During four months of chemotherapy, she said she tried marijuana after 
conventional drugs failed to relieve her symptoms. A nonuser before that, 
she found that the marijuana literally kept her going.

At first, Schafer bought marijuana for her on the street. Concerned about 
the risk, the couple began practicing horticulture.

Fry told Scherer that she conducted a thorough review of the literature on 
medicinal cannabis and visited several doctors who were recommending it. 
Schafer studied the law on the subject. In November 1999, they opened the 
California Medical Research Center in Cool.

"The California Medical Board has left Fry alone," the article says. "Local 
law enforcement officers now thank Fry -- a far cry from spying on her. On 
average, she testifies in one case each month on behalf of her patients. To 
Fry's knowledge, not a single patient has been found guilty in a medicinal 
marijuana case since the center opened."

According to the article, Schafer has met with the state's medical board, 
as well as with members of the state Attorney General's Office, to present 
the center's procedures as the basis for statewide certification guidelines.
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MAP posted-by: Beth