Pubdate: Fri, 20 Sep 2002
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Author: Jeff McDonald, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

POT GROWER GETS LETTER OF WARNING FROM DEA

McWilliams Says He Won't Be Intimidated

Federal law enforcement officials in San Diego may be preparing to crack 
down on medical marijuana activist Steven McWilliams, who this week handed 
out samples of the drug to sick people outside City Hall.

An agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration approached 
McWilliams on the street as he was running errands yesterday afternoon and 
hand-delivered a letter warning him to stop cultivating his plants or face 
arrest.

Signed by U.S. Attorney Carol C. Lam, the correspondence advises McWilliams 
that he is not protected by a state law that allows chronically ill 
patients to use and grow the pain-relieving drug.

True to form, McWilliams said he would not be intimidated by the federal 
government and vowed that he would continue growing and dispensing 
marijuana to needy patients.

"We're being retaliated against," said McWilliams, who has made no secret 
of the two dozen or so marijuana plants he grows outside his Normal Heights 
home. "They don't want this, and they're going to try and shut us down."

Lam did not return calls seeking comment about the letter, but her office 
released a statement saying that marijuana is not medicine under federal law.

Donald Thornhill Jr., spokesman for the DEA office in San Diego, defended 
the warning to McWilliams as a routine response to unlawful behavior. The 
DEA would help carry out any raid on McWilliams' garden.

"Obviously, there's a conflict with the federal laws and with what some of 
these medical marijuana people are doing," Thornhill said. "The bottom line 
for us is that medical marijuana continues to be illegal."

California voters in 1996 approved Proposition 215, which allows patients 
to grow and use marijuana for medicinal purposes. Seven other states also 
have adopted medical marijuana laws, but federal officials maintain that 
the use or possession of the drug remains criminal.

The state Supreme Court last July granted limited immunity from prosecution 
to medical marijuana patients, but the U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled 
that medical necessity was no defense for violating federal drug rules.

In San Diego, city officials have been working for nearly a year to somehow 
reconcile the incompatible laws.

A task force will present its recommended guidelines to a City Council 
committee as soon as next month. The committee estimated that 1,500 or more 
sick and dying patients would be eligible for special identification cards 
the city plans to issue early next year.

Juliana Humphrey, an attorney who serves as chairwoman of the city task 
force, said the letter from federal officials was disturbing.

"It's clear that the federal government, despite its many other obligations 
at this point in history, seems to be making time to harass medical users 
of marijuana," she said. "It's a very ominous and bullying tactic that the 
feds are using to deal with a medical issue."

Delivery of the letter came two days after McWilliams conducted a 
high-profile protest outside San Diego City Hall, where he criticized city 
officials for moving too slowly to implement state law.

That demonstration was timed to support a much larger rally also staged 
Tuesday in Santa Cruz. Local elected officials there joined 1,000 or more 
medical marijuana patients in decrying a federal drug raid on a garden 
outside Santa Cruz this month.

In that case, armed federal agents seized 100 marijuana plants and arrested 
several people. The suspects were later released and prosecutors announced 
that no charges would be filed.

Thornhill said the timing of yesterday's letter had nothing to do with the 
protests this week. "Regardless of what the politics are, people are 
subject to arrest and he's violating the law," the DEA spokesman said.

McWilliams is by far the leading advocate for medical marijuana in San 
Diego County. His marijuana gardens have been raided several times, and 
earlier this year he completed three years of formal probation he received 
after pleading guilty to a 1998 misdemeanor charge of illegal cultivation.

San Diego police are well aware of McWilliams and generally steer clear of 
his Normal Heights cannabis club, the only place south of Los Angeles where 
medical marijuana patients can obtain the drug.

In fact, McWilliams said, when he complained last month that people were 
trying to steal his plants at the start of the harvest season, police 
informed nearby residents that the garden was legal under state law.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager