Pubdate: Fri,  6 Sep 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: Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

DEA BUSTS, THEN RELEASES, POT ACTIVISTS

Medical Marijuana Supporters Plan Protests In Bay Area, Nation Today

Federal agents raided a medical marijuana collective near Santa Cruz and 
arrested two well-known activists Thursday, the first such action in 
Northern California since February's raids in Oakland and San Francisco.

But by day's end, Valerie and Michael Corral -- who helped write the 
state's medical marijuana law -- were home. An official source said the 
federal prosecutors had declined to charge them, forcing the Drug 
Enforcement Administration to let them go.

Still, medical marijuana advocates across the nation took the raid and its 
destruction of 167 marijuana plants as a declaration of war, promising 
protests at noon today outside federal buildings in dozens of cities 
including Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose.

"My heart's broken," Valerie Corral said Thursday night. "We have 250 
members of our collective garden, a lot of people who are sick and 
suffering. But they (the DEA) cannot make us stand down. We will carry on 
business as usual."

More than 20 DEA agents, some reportedly clad in riot gear and wielding 
assault rifles, arrived early Thursday at the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical 
Marijuana, off Route 1 near Davenport, 60 miles south of San Francisco. DEA 
spokesman Special Agent Richard Meyer said Thursday morning that the 
Corrals, WAMM's co-founders, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and 
possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.

"We received information from confidential sources that these people were 
involved in marijuana trafficking," he said, adding it didn't matter 
whether that "trafficking" differed from the alliance's free provision of 
marijuana to its physician-screened members.

"That's a myth put out by people who want to legalize marijuana. ... There 
is no medical marijuana," Meyer said. "We make no distinctions because 
there are none -- people who grow marijuana are marijuana traffickers. Our 
job is to enforce federal laws, and we surely will."

Yet by day's end, the U.S. Attorney's office said no indictment or criminal 
complaint had been filed against the Corrals, and declined further comment. 
An official source elsewhere said federal prosecutors had declined to file 
charges.

Valerie Corral late Thursday said she was "told to await indictment," which 
entails prosecutors convincing a federal grand jury the Corrals should be 
tried. Michael Corral said DEA agents who released them said to expect to 
hear from the government again, "could be in a day, a week or a year."

The federal government still deems all marijuana growth, possession or use 
illegal, even though California voters approved medical use in 1996. 
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington have 
similar laws.

Word of the raid spread fast and far, and distance didn't dilute the 
resulting rhetoric.

"These are terrorist actions," said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the 
Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "If Osama bin Laden sent 
squads of armed men into the U.S. to storm medical facilities, seize 
confidential patient records and literally take medicine from the sick and 
dying, George W. Bush would be promising to hunt him down to the ends of 
the earth. If he wants to hunt terrorists, he should start with his own DEA."

Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative executive director Jeff Jones agreed: 
"I can't believe that federal priorities are this out of line -- we've only 
arrested one terrorist in California, but near the anniversary of 9/11 we 
have the DEA up to no good, seizing the medicine of 250 Californians."

WAMM board member and patient Suzanne Pfeil, a paraplegic who uses 
marijuana to control post-polio syndrome pain, said more than 20 WAMM 
patients went to the farm Thursday to beg DEA agents to leave the plants, 
to no avail.

"Now these people have no medicine for this year -- it's being cut down and 
it's going to be buried somewhere," she said. "I feel like my country is 
waging war against me."

DEA agents in February raided the Oakland home-office of noted marijuana 
author Ed Rosenthal; the Harm Reduction Center medical marijuana club in 
San Francisco; and other sites, arresting Rosenthal and three others. 
Rosenthal on Thursday noted WAMM accepts no money for marijuana it provides 
to patients, relying instead on charitable donations.

"These two people, Valerie and Mike, did not do this for money, they did 
this for love," he said. "They're very loving people, and to call them drug 
traffickers is just laughable."

Said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the national Drug Policy 
Alliance: "This club, of all the clubs that have been raided, stands out as 
being the one that was most true to the hospice spirit -- there were no 
shenanigans, there was no profit-making."

Meyer said agents seized three rifles and a shotgun. Pfeil said the weapons 
were unloaded family heirlooms passed down to Michael Corral by his 
grandfather.

The Corrals helped draft the state law provision letting patients and care 
givers cultivate their own medical marijuana, and Valerie Corral in 1999 
served on state Attorney General Bill Lockyer's medical marijuana policy 
task force.

"The DEA under the Bush administration has made it perfectly clear that 
they don't care about the will of California voters, who think medical 
marijuana should be available for people whose doctors believe they would 
benefit from it," Lockyer spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said Thursday.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department spokesman Deputy Kim Allen said the 
DEA never told his department about the raid. Deputies went there after the 
fact only to keep the peace between protesters and DEA agents, he said: 
"Our concern is to make sure nobody gets hurt."

The department has a marijuana enforcement team targeting illegal 
trafficking, Allen said, but meets regularly with the Corrals and had 
deemed WAMM in compliance with -- and protected by -- state law.

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said she was "absolutely 
appalled" by the raid, and called WAMM "an extremely responsible collective 
... they have operated their business in a way that has been exemplary."

With Sept. 11 so near, "it is not reassuring to me to know that federal 
agents, instead of concentrating on issues of national security, are 
running around the mountains of Santa Cruz County disrupting the work of 
people who provide a valuable medical resource to the community," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager