Pubdate: Sun, 06 May 2001
Source: Marin Independent Journal (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Marin Independent Journal
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/673
Website: http://www.marinij.com/
Author: Gary Klien
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n699/a12.html

WOMAN BEHIND DA RECALL: ANGEL OR MILITANT?

Last spring, Fairfax police visited a home on Scenic Road after a neighbor 
complained there were so many marijuana plants growing next door she was 
afraid the seeds would blow into her yard.

Police officers knocked on the door, entered with permission and counted 
more than 60 marijuana plants - some as tall as 4 feet - on the grounds. 
Then they left.

The resident, Lynnette Shaw, was neither arrested nor charged. Instead, 
police said Shaw violated her use permit and referred the matter to town 
planning officials.

Shaw, the founding director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, 
has created a program that allows her to sell marijuana - with annual 
revenues of nearly $1 million, tax free - with apparent impunity. Yet, by 
spearheading a recall bid against District Attorney Paula Kamena, she 
threatens to alienate the very authorities who tolerate her.

Shaw - lounge singer, ordained minister, convicted felon and champion of 
the Black Point forest - says she's going to bat for the sick.

"She's basically a modern Joan of Arc, what can I say?" said Fairfax 
resident Michael Dunne, 55, a long-time Shaw supporter. "She's got her 
finger on the political pulse in Marin County. Lynnette is some type of 
crusading angel who, for whatever reasons, has taken up this project of 
bringing truth to the people."

Not everyone shares that view.

"I like Lynnette, but I think that she's not the best business person in 
the world, and I don't think she did her cause or her clients any good by 
getting involved with this recall movement," said Fairfax Mayor Mike 
Ghiringhelli, who supports medical marijuana and favors full legalization. 
"It's a little hard to understand why she's doing what she's doing with the 
recall. I think she's making a mistake. Ultimately, I believe she'll lose 
supporters."

Rise of a renegade

Shaw says she never aspired to political leadership and would be perfectly 
happy returning to her entertainment career. Her band, High Priestess, is 
producing a CD with tunes like "Hemp Required," "Wish it was Hemp" and 
"Swords of the Plowshares."

"I have no political ambition," she said. "I would like to solve this 
problem and go back to music."

Shaw was born in 1953 and raised in Antioch with a sister, Darnelle. Their 
father was an IRS agent and their mother was a social worker and 
humanitarian activist.

Shaw said the tensions arising from her parents' clashing philosophies - 
her father was a Reagan-loving establishmentarian, while her mother was a 
passionate defender of civil rights - were a profound influence growing up 
in the tumultuous late 1960s and early '70s.

"My mother and father loved each other very much, but there was an 
ideological conflict that came to a head when I was a teen-ager," she said. 
"We were first-generation hippies."

The other big influence on Shaw was geography. Growing up in Antioch, near 
the industrial chemical and pesticide companies along the Sacramento-San 
Joaquin Delta, caused her "multiple chemical injuries," permanent 
allergies, depression and relentless fatigue, she said. It was her 
introduction to the world of chronic pain.

"I went through all kinds of doctors and all kinds of pills," she said. "I 
couldn't get my body to stop hurting. So they kept giving me more pills. 
Nothing worked."

She found that marijuana helped, but her doctors "scolded" her for using 
it. But in the mid-'80s - after years of physical distress, anorexia and a 
suicide attempt - she started using marijuana again and hasn't looked back.

"That was the only thing that gave me hope," she said.

Shaw said she moved to Marin in 1984 after brief stints at the University 
of California at Berkeley and Diablo Valley College. She enrolled at the 
College of Marin, studying music and video and working part-time as an 
audio-visual aide. A singer, composer and instrumentalist, Shaw was working 
toward a career as a performer.

"She was very friendly and open, and everybody liked her," said 
audio-visual supervisor Clarke Bugbee. "She was always just 
straightforward, honest, a lot of fun and a great worker. She always tried 
to put good, positive energy in the department."

Working with Peron

Shaw stopped taking classes after a few semesters and her nascent musical 
career stalled. But in 1990, her life took a different tack when she met 
Dennis Peron, the founder of the pioneering marijuana dispensary in San 
Francisco. Shaw volunteered at the club, which was coping with the massive 
AIDS crisis in the city.

"She was such a good helper and so kind to the patients that I put her on 
the staff," said Peron, reached at his cannabis farm in rural Lake County. 
"She was one of these people that'd want to take care of the disabled 
people, people who couldn't make it up the stairs, couldn't get out of the 
house. She sat with the people, just cared about them. She rose to the 
occasion and really has a good heart."

Shaw said she nursed more than 5,000 patients during her time at Peron's 
club. She said she was moved by the courage of the sufferers.

"It was just a wonderful blessing to work with those people," she said.

It was also around this time that Shaw learned the tribulations of arrest 
and prosecution. After a 1990 bust in San Pablo, Shaw was charged with 
possession of marijuana for sale, possession of LSD and possession of 
psilocybin, or psychedelic mushrooms.

She pleaded guilty to four felony counts on Sept. 6, 1991, and was 
sentenced to 150 days in the Contra Costa County Jail, according to court 
documents.

Over the next few years, Shaw continued helping Peron and worked to get 
marijuana legalized. In 1993, she was appointed to the county's Advisory 
Panel on Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in a controversial move by the 
Board of Supervisors.

The appointment provoked so much outrage that one panel member, former San 
Anselmo Police Chief Bernard Del Santo, threatened to quit the board if 
Shaw was allowed to join. The panel booted Shaw in a secret vote, but then 
reversed itself and took Shaw in.

Birth of a pot club

In 1996, a pivotal development in San Francisco launched Shaw's career as a 
marijuana merchant. A few months before medical marijuana was legalized by 
Proposition 215, Peron was arrested and authorities shut down his pot club. 
In the wake of the bust, Peron's patients needed a place to go, and many of 
them turned up on Shaw's doorstep.

"We started a club, because we didn't know what else to do," Shaw said. "I 
don't want anybody to suffer like I have suffered, to go to jail for their 
suffering."

The following year, Shaw was ordained into the Religion of Jesus Church, 
which advocates marijuana as a thought-producing "neurohormone" that brings 
people closer to God. The religion was founded in Sonoma in 1969 and later 
moved to Hawaii.

"We use (marijuana) as a condiment of the remembrance supper," said the 
Rev. Dennis Shields, 55, of Captain Cook, HI. "This is a mandated religious 
practice. Spiritual receptivity and creative imagination are chemically 
dependent, and cannabis, for us, fills this function."

Shields, who said he ordained Shaw, calls her "hard working and supremely 
dedicated to her patients."

"I see her constantly helping people out, people coming to her home for 
help," he said. "Sometimes her heart is bigger than her wisdom should be, 
and that's not a fault in my book. Somebody comes along that, you know, 
maybe she tries to help them a little too much. She goes the second mile."

Shaw uses "the Reverend" before her name, and her supporters clearly take 
comfort in her ministry.

"This woman is a spiritual leader," Clayton Shinn, a member of the pot 
club, said after running into Shaw recently in downtown Fairfax.

"I pray for you," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

'It's not about money'

This year, Shaw's influence reached new heights when she masterminded a May 
22 recall election against District Attorney Kamena because of her handling 
of medical-marijuana cases. Kamena is being challenged by Shaw's handpicked 
candidate, patent attorney Thomas Van Zandt of Mill Valley.

Shaw claims Kamena is violating Proposition 215, which legalized 
"compassionate use" in 1996. Coincidentally, or not, Shaw is running a $1 
million-a-year retail marijuana outlet in the middle of downtown Fairfax.

Kamena has dismissed Shaw's marijuana crusade as a "great marketing plan" 
because she runs the only medical pot operation in Marin. But people who 
know Shaw say her only motive is helping sick people, not getting rich.

"This is a political battle that needs to be fought," Peron said. "It's not 
about money for her."

Shaw runs a brisk trade in a rented suite on School Road, across from the 
Little League field. The club is open for business seven days a week, and 
at any given time during the business day there are patients coming and 
going, plus the occasional drop-in salesperson.

By some accounts, working for Shaw is more of a calling than a job.

"I've worked for her for three and a half years," said Sean Kerrigan, 35, 
of Petaluma. "This has been a really good opportunity for me to see all the 
good that can be done at a place like this.

"She's always been for the little people. She tries to speak up for the 
people who really don't have money or the time or energy to speak up for 
themselves. That's the best thing about her, the way she tries to save 
other people who can't help themselves."

Shaw's wares are not cheap. A sign advertises "budget green" for $5 a gram, 
enough for a small cigarette, but most other products are much pricier. A 
2.5-gram vial of hash oil runs $20, a gram of "Santa Cruz Blue" is $20 and 
a spliff, or joint, is $25.

Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover and debit cards are accepted.

Shaw says her overhead is 80 cents on the dollar, but there is little 
question the club is bringing in lots of money. By Shaw's own account, the 
club has a membership of about 1,400 patients, a full-time staff of four 
and gross revenues of $937,000 for the year 2000.

Shaw said marijuana sales have tripled in the past 18 months, largely 
because authorities keep seizing her members' pot and forcing them to buy 
more. Shaw adds that she personally made "less than $50,000" last year. And 
while her home in the Fairfax hills cost $400,000, according to county 
records, Shaw said the down payment came from her parents' estate.

"There doesn't seem to be much accountability, and considering the 
circumstances of how she runs that business, her books should be wide open 
and everyone should have a right to know how that money's being spent," 
Mayor Ghiringhelli said. "Maybe it's hard to run a business when it's 
between being legal and illegal, but there's a lot of money coming in, it's 
one of the bigger businesses in Fairfax, there's not taxes being paid.

"It's time for Lynnette to start paying her share of the bills because 
Fairfax can't keep sponsoring this business."

Police accommodation

Despite Shaw's claims of official harassment, Fairfax Sgt. Jim Providenza 
said the Town of Fairfax - whose residents approved Prop. 215 
overwhelmingly - has bent over backward to accommodate Shaw and her 
marijuana club.

But Shaw has a tendency to test the public's good will, such as her 
insistence on selling pot during Little League games, he said.

"The town has made an effort to work with the Marin Alliance for Medical 
Marijuana and attempted to help that organization distribute medical 
marijuana to people in need," Providenza said. "The goal here is not to 
find some reason to arrest Lynnette Shaw."

"It's an interesting commentary that she's trying to remove from office the 
woman who's allowing her to grow plants," he said.

Shaw counts herself as a former Kamena supporter who feels betrayed by the 
DA's stance on medical pot. Kamena's guidelines - that legitimate patients 
likely will not be prosecuted for fewer than seven mature marijuana plants, 
fewer than 13 immature plants or less than half a pound of dried marijuana 
- - is in line with other California DAs struggling with Prop. 215.

Most medical-marijuana cases in Marin County end up getting dismissed, 
either by the DA's office or the courts.

Yet Shaw says the sick and dying should not have to go through the ordeal 
of having their pot confiscated and dealing with the legal system.

"I feel personally responsible for telling my people to vote for Paula 
Kamena (in 1998)," she said. "I'm ashamed that we trusted her. She 
basically suspended 215."

Kamena said that when she was running for DA, she neither sought nor 
acknowledged the club's political support. As for Shaw's perceived betrayal 
on Prop. 215, her feelings are misguided, Kamena said.

"It's not true that marijuana is not being returned. We don't take 
possession of it," she said. "We developed a threshold guideline that all 
the police departments are following. She exaggerates and overstates, and 
it's just not true."

Saving the trees

Shaw's career as a political rabble-rouser has not been limited to 
marijuana. In 1998, she formed the Black Point Forest & Wetlands Rescue 
Project, an effort to block a housing development and golf course in 
Novato. The development had already been approved by the voters and City 
Council, but Shaw's group managed to get a temporary court order to stop 
the grading and tree removal.

The developers, Vince Mulroy and Bill Bunce of the Black Point Partnership, 
hit the roof.

"This extremist group ... continues to thwart the will of the vast majority 
of the residents of Novato, even though the members of the group raised 
their objections through more than eight years of due process and more than 
25 public hearings," the developers said.

The court order was later lifted and Shaw's side lost the fight, but Shaw 
had gained more visibility and experience as a local activist.

Former Novato Mayor Christine Knight, who supported the Black Point 
development, described Shaw as "militant" and "self-centered."

"'You either do my way or else,' that's her attitude," Knight said. "I 
think she incites militant ways amongst people."

But even Knight concedes that Shaw has strong political skills.

"She presents herself well and she's articulate," she said. "She projects 
well when she's speaking.

"She does her homework."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D