Source: Bay Area Reporter
Contact:  http://www.ebar.com/
Address: 395 Ninth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415)861-5019
Pubdate: 21 May 1998
Author: Mark Mardon

DEA RAIDS CANNABIS FARM; FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS POT CLUBS TO SHUT

Federal authorities delivered a one-two blow against beleaguered Cannabis
Healing Club (CHC) patients last week, temporarily setting back volunteer
efforts to provide marijuana for sick and dying people in San Francisco.
First a U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of a Justice Department
civil suit seeking the closure of six cannabis clubs in California,
including the CHC.  Just days later, in a scene reminiscent of Prohibition
Era smashing of bootleggers' stills, a cadre of Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) agents descended on the CHC's pot farm in Northern California's Lake
County, handcuffed patients there, and systematically ripped out all the
farm's carefully cultivated plants.

Marijuana's soothing effects are particularly valued by patients with HIV
and AIDS, who suffer nausea and other acute side effects of
combination-drug therapies.  Evidence suggests it is also hugely effective
against glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, and the effects of cancer chemotherapy.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer issued a ruling Wednesday, May 13
in the federal civil case against six cannabis clubs in California.  He
ordered a preliminary injunction against the clubs, to go into effect this
week.

However, Breyer refused to grant the Clinton administration's call for an
immediate permanent injunction against the clubs.  He declined to address
the constitutionality of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Care Act passed
by California voters in 1996, and held out the possibility that local
governmental agencies could carry out the humanitarian mandate that
citizens envisioned when they voted to approve the law.

State, federal, and moral laws

Breyer also ruled that "the court is not deciding whether a seriously ill
person who possesses marijuana for personal use upon a physician's
recommendation is in violation of federal law. Rather, the sole issue here
is whether defendants' conduct, which may be lawful under state law, may
nevertheless violate federal law and can thus be enjoined"

Attorneys J. Tony Serra and Brendan R. Cummings had argued, on behalf of
the Cannabis Cultivator's Club (now renamed the Cannabis Healing Center, or
CHC), that "federal intervention into California's attempt to effectuate
the 'Compassionate Use Act' is inappropriate. Californians should have the
opportunity to make the [state] law compatible with federal law before that
chance is taken away from them."

Nevertheless, Breyer concluded that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.
Constitution puts federal law ahead of state law, observing that "there is
a strong likelihood that defendants' conduct violates the [federal]
Controlled Substances Act."

"We plan to continue serving our sick and dying patients," said Hazel
Rodgers, 79-year-old director of the CHC.  "It would be against moral law
for us to do otherwise."

Rodgers indicated that her center would defy any injunction, opting instead
to be held in contempt of court.  Such an act of civil disobedience, she
noted, would enable patients and their lawyers to take the case to a
federal jury trial.  In such a proceeding, the defendants would be able to
mount a medical necessity defense that could potentially change federal law.

"On the surface this ruling looks like bad news, but it is really good
news," commented ever-defiant Proposition 215 author Dennis Peron. "This
will give us our day in court, and the whole world will be watching and
waiting for us to make the case for compassion and against the hypocrisy
that is the status quo."

Planters' twarts

Just two days after Breyer's ruling, at about 8 a.m. on Friday, May 15,
some 20 DEA agents surprised four patients at the Lake County Cannabis
Healing Center, a branch of the San Francisco CHC.  The agents kept the
four handcuffed for at least an hour, confiscated a computer, and ripped
out most of approximately 500 pot plants that volunteers had planted in
several carefully cultivated plots.

CHC volunteers believe Lake County Sheriff Rodney Mitchell, who previously
had shown little inclination to shut down the operation himself, gave the
DEA agents the green light to raid the farm.

Apart from marijuana, the DEA agents found no other drugs or even alcohol
at the farm, which includes a cabin perched on a plateau at 1,800 ft.  The
retreat, operated entirely by some 120 patients from the CHC, is enhanced
by a sun deck, toolshed, vegetable garden, citrus trees, a spring-fed lake,
a pumphouse, wild blackberry bushes, bluejays, lizards, grazing cattle,
horses, and Fred, the local basset hound.

The DEA raid came one day before a scheduled "media open house" at which
CHC patients were planning to take journalists on a tour of the property,
proudly displaying the fruits (or buds) of their labor.

"The agents admitted they were here to thwart our event," said John
Entwistle, legislative analyst for the CHC, who was among those handcuffed.
 Entwistle has been spearheading the cultivation at the Lake County retreat.

Once the DEA agents left with their cache of uprooted pot plants, Entwistle
and the other CHC patients immediately set about replanting the denuded
plots, determined to keep their medicine growing.

"We will not give up," said Rodgers, who was in San Francisco at the time
of the Lake County raid.  "No one has ever died from using marijuana, yet
there are people who are so sick that they will die if they don't use it.
This is a human rights issue.  They can pull up our plants all they want,
but we will keep replanting."

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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski