Source:  Los Angeles Times,  June 5, 1997  2132374712

 County Will Test Prop. 215 With Cannabis CoOp Worker 
Law: David L. Herrick faces marijuana charges. He says he uses the drug
 to alleviate disc pain and has a doctor's note. 
 By LEE ROMNEY, Times Staff Writer
               
SANTA ANAThe Orange County district attorney's office has filed the 
county's first drug case challenging the power of Proposition 215the 
measure that allows people with certain illnesses to grow and use marijuana 
with a doctor's approval. 
     David Lee Herrick, 47, was arrested outside the Santa Ana motel room 
where he helped run the Orange County Cannabis Coop. 
     Officers approached Herrick with a felony arrest warrant from San 
Bernardino Countywhere he had allegedly violated probation on a marijuana 
offense that predated Proposition 215. When they entered his room, they 
found coop literature and seven bags of marijuana marked with the group's 
logo and stamped "Not for sale. For medicinal use only." 
     The coop was formed after the passage of the state initiative to 
provide marijuana to people who produce a doctor's note, and to inform users 
of their rights. 
     Prosecutors have charged Herrick with felony possession of marijuana 
for sale. He is scheduled to appear in Superior Court this month, said Carl 
Armbrust, head of the district attorney's narcotics unit.  
     Armbrust said he has been looking for a Proposition 215 test case since 
the measure passed in November. 
     Matt Ross, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office, said 
several other cases are being prosecuted in Northern California, one of 
those against the person taking care of a patient. 
     In addition, the attorney general's office is litigating a case before 
an appellate court that explores whether the law allows a cannabis buyers' 
club, such as Orange County's coop, to sell marijuana.  "We have taken 
the position that Prop. 215 does not provide for a club to sell to patients," 
Ross said. 
     However, Dave Fratello, spokesman for the Santa Monicabased Americans 
for Medical Rights, which ran the campaign for Proposition 215, said he 
knows of more cases where prosecutors opted not to file charges after 
learning that the defendant had a physician's note. 
     The Los Angeles city attorney's office in March dropped a marijuana 
possession case against a man suffering from AIDS whose use of the drug was 
acknowledged by his doctor. In Orange County, prosecutors opted not to file 
charges in January against a sicklecell anemia patient who had a similar
note. 
In that case, the woman was carrying only a small amount for her personal
use. 
     State legislation has been proposed that would make it easier for sick 
people to buy marijuana for medicinal purposes, so they could avoid 
backalley dealers and buyers' clubs. 
     Herrick carries a membership card for the Orange County Cannabis Coop, 
he said in a telephone interview from the Orange County Jail, and uses the 
drug to alleviate pain from a herniated disc.  A "physician statement" signed 
on a form letter provided by the Coop says that his doctor has "no
objection to 
her/him using cannabis/marijuana for this purpose." 
     He also volunteers with the coop, helping to confirm members' 
physician notes and provide them with marijuana for whatever donation they 
can afford to give, he said. 
     Armbrust said he believes the "physician's statement" provided by the 
group will not hold up in court. 
     "It's not a defense to have a doctor simply say, 'I don't object if he 
uses it,' because it's not the doctor who's objecting, it's the state of 
California that's objecting," he said. 
     Armbrust said Herrick told officers the drug was "not for sale, but he 
says he accepts a $20 donation." That, to Armbrust, constitutes possession 
for sale. 
     Designed to decriminalize marijuana use for patients suffering from 
AIDSrelated wasting syndrome, chemotherapyrelated nausea and muscle 
spasms, among other ailments, Proposition 215 has left some feeling more 
uncertain of their rights. 
     The measure has caused confusion as federal officials threatened to 
crack down on doctors recommending marijuana. While the law decriminalizes 
possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal use if the patient has 
the "recommendation or approval" of a physician, it does nothing to protect 
distributors of marijuana or guide users to a legitimate source of the drug. 
     That weakness may prove harmful to Herrick's case, said Fratello. 
     "If you charge them under a section like felony possession for sale, 
it's quite possible that the person wouldn't be protected," he said. 
     Herrick, who used to run a head shop in Hesperia that sold 
marijuanarelated paraphernalia, said he did not oppose his May 18 arrest on 
the felony warrant, or the search of his motel room. But he said the officers 
should have respected his membership card from the coop and his doctor's
note. 
     "They're not honoring us as a buyers' club," he said from jail. "We 
were running our operation out of that room. I showed the officer all the 
literature." 
     While Herrick said he recognized a "test case" of Proposition 215 was 
necessary, he pointed out that buyers' clubs are the only way to get safe 
marijuana to sick people for a reasonable price. 
     "We have a law that's been passed by 56% of the voters of this state," 
he said. "No one in the government has taken any move whatsoever to move 
this out of the hands of the buyers' clubs and into the hands of a medical 
facility, so how are these patients supposed to get their weed?" 

Copyright Los Angeles Times