Pubdate: Thu, 06 Jun 2002
Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
Copyright: 2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.oaklandtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/314
Author: Lakiesha McGhee, Oakland Tribune

MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS PLAN MASSIVE PROTEST

BERKELEY- Erik Levy said he's been arrested twice for using marijuana for 
medicinal purposes, and he's willing to give up his freedom again to 
protect the rights of other patients whose access to the drug is being 
threatened.

Levy and hundreds of activists across the state met over the weekend to 
prepare for the national "day of direct action" scheduled for Thursday. On 
that day, more than a thousand advocates for medical marijuana are planning 
to picket, rally and risk arrest in 54 U.S. cities to protest what they 
refer to as the Drug Enforcement Agency's "attempt to recriminalize medical 
cannabis."

Bay Area activists are planning to protest at the Oakland and San Francisco 
federal buildings at noon.

"My mother thinks I'm a criminal because I use this stuff, and that really 
upsets me." said Levy, 41, a founding member of the Lamps League of 
American Marijuana Patients and Supporters in San Francisco. He uses the 
drug to treat a chronic form of depression he was diagnosed with.

The small group who gathered Sunday were schooled on how to participate in 
an effective nonviolent action - whether their role is passing out leaflets 
or resisting arrest during a sit-in.

They brainstormed on creative ways to catch the eye of DEA officials and 
the media for Thursday's demonstration. Some ideas included planting 
marijuana gardens in front of protest sites, staging a mock funeral and 
flooding federal communication lines with faxes and telephone calls listing 
their demands.

"We ask ourselves, how much disruption is too much? But I feel the DEA is 
making me do this, " said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for 
Safe Access in Berkeley.

"We need the federal government to enforce the law. We know that medical 
marijuana works and it's not right that at any moment the DEA can come in 
and bust patients who use it."

Proposition 215, passed by 56 percent of California voters in 1996, 
protects seriously and terminally ill patients from criminal penalties for 
using marijuana.

But about a year after the law was passed, owners of cannabis centers found 
themselves caught in lawsuits brought by federal and state law enforcement 
officials, or defending themselves from criminal charges related to their 
operations.

Organizers said the nationwide action is in direct response to DEA raids on 
eight medical marijuana dispensaries in California that may be forced to 
close their doors after court proceedings concluded on or after June 6.

The group claims that Attorney General John Ashcroft and DEA officials 
embarked on a campaign last fall to close down medical marijuana 
cooperatives operating within the constraints of the law.

The Cannabis Action Network is demanding: (1) that President Bush and 
Attorney General John Ashcroft declare a moratorium on "the federal 
anti-medical marijuana campaign" and grant states the right to choose and 
govern medical marijuana laws; (2) that Bush declare support of the States 
Rights to Medical Marijuana Act introduced in the House last year; (3) that 
all prosecutions against medical marijuana patients, growers and 
dispensaries stop.

Dr. Mike Alcalay, medical director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer 
Cooperative, which is temporarily barred from distributing medical 
marijuana due to a Supreme Court decision last year, said the government is 
ignoring all the information about medicinal marijuana.

"It's one of the safest drugs out there. No one dies of an overdose," said 
Alcalay, who uses marijuana to treat his illness, AIDS.

"This has nothing to do with science, it's all about politics."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens