Hrmmm. Are Governor Bush's daughters going to move?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 10:35:30 -0700
From: Nora Callahan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Nov-L: Calif. City Plans Marijuana Giveaway
City Plans Protest With Pot Giveaway
By MARTHA MENDOZA
.c The Associated Press
Calif. City Plans Marijuana Giveaway
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) - City leaders plan to join medical marijuana
users
at a pot giveaway at City Hall next week, hoping to send a message to
federal
authorities that, in this town, medical marijuana is welcome.
The invitation comes one week after agents from the Drug Enforcement
Agency
arrested the high-profile owners of a pot farm and confiscated 130
plants
that had been grown to be used as medicine.
``It's just absolutely loathsome to me that federal money, energy and
staff
time would be used to harass people like this,'' said vice mayor Emily
Reilly, who with several City Council colleagues plans to pass out
medical
marijuana to sick people from the garden-like courtyard at City Hall on
Tuesday.
Though the council passed a resolution denouncing the raid, there is no
official city sponsorship of the event - council members and medical
marijuana advocates are simply acting on their own in a public space,
said
City Attorney John Barisone.
DEA spokesman Richard Meyer was surprised at the plan.
``Are you serious? That's illegal. It's like they're flouting federal
law,''
he said. ``I'm shocked that city leaders would promote the use of
marijuana
that way. What is that saying to our youth?''
State law in California, as well as Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada,
Oregon and Washington, allows marijuana to be grown and distributed to
people
with a doctor's prescription. Federal law prohibits marijuana use under
any
circumstances.
In recent months, federal agents - working without local support - have
been
busting pot clubs and farms in Northern California, including a small
pot
farm last week about 55 miles south of San Francisco, arresting owners
Valerie and Michael Corral.
No indictment was filed against the couple, leading activists for
medical
marijuana; their attorney said federal authorities do not plan to
prosecute.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she could not comment.
California medical marijuana growers and distributors work closely with
local
law enforcement, and are quite open about their programs. In fact, the
farm
raided by DEA agents had been featured in national media, and the
program is
listed in the local telephone book.
``The courage of the Santa Cruz City Council and the growing anger in
Congress are signs of a genuine grassroots rebellion all across this
country
that will put an end to these attacks on the sick and vulnerable,'' said
Robert Kampia, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based
Marijuana
Policy Project.
In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a measure ending the
prohibition of medical marijuana. Four years later, state voters
approved
Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes. And in 2000,
the
city council approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to be
grown and
used without a prescription.
09/11/02 22:21 EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
news
report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed
without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active
hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
--
Nora Callahan
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