YUBA DRUG ARRESTS PROTESTED

Couple's Use Of Marijuana Defended

Carrying handwritten signs and posters, about 20 people gathered on the
sidewalk in front of the Yuba County Courthouse Wednesday afternoon,
protesting the recent arrest of a Linda couple who say they were growing
marijuana in their back yard for medical use.

Armed with placards reading "Are you sick?" "Do not pass go - go directly
to jail," "When did the D.A. become a Dr.?" and "Real police officers don't
arrest the sick and (dying)," the protesters marched back and forth along
Fifth Street between C and B streets, stopping occasionally to answer the
questions of passers-by.

Protest organizer Bonnie Metcalf, of the Yuba County Compassionate Use
Co-op, said the event's goal was to increase public awareness about medical
marijuana.

Participants in the protest were mainly co-op members, although at least
one woman attended because she read about the event.

"It's wrong to arrest people who have valid recommendations (from doctors
to use the drug)," Metcalf said.

Doyle and Belinda Satterfield are such people, Metcalf said.

The Satterfields were arrested Friday after Yuba-Sutter Narcotics Task
Force Agents, who served a search warrant on their Linda home, said they
confiscated 37 marijuana plants and a substantial amount of processed
marijuana.

The Satterfields, who both have recommendations from doctors to use the
drug for medical purposes, showed their paperwork to agents but were
arrested nonetheless.

Narcotics officials said the amount of marijuana in the home far exceeded
the amount necessary for medical treatment. Agents had estimated the plants
were capable of producing more than 55 pounds of marijuana, but Metcalf and
other medical users disagree with their figures.

Doyle Satterfield is under a physician's treatment for chronic arthritis
and insomnia. Belinda Satterfield is being treated for breast cancer and
has had a mastectomy of her left breast.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Doyle Satterfield's physician, Dr. Tod
Mikuriya, confirmed he had written a recommendation for Satterfield to use
marijuana as treatment for his ailments.

Mikuriya, who has a medical degree from Temple University Medical School in
Philadelphia, is in private psychiatric practice in Berkeley.

Mikuriya, who, according to his Web site is "one of the world's foremost
authorities" on the uses of medical cannabis, said he has had other
patients who have run into problems with the law despite having his
recommendation in their possession.

The Satterfields were released Friday evening on their own recognizance but
have been ordered to appear in court Sept. 11. Their marijuana has not been
returned to them, Metcalf said.

"If (Belinda Satterfield) needs to go through chemo again, she is not going
to have the medication necessary to keep from vomiting," she said.

Metcalf said they will be filing a report of officers in noncompliance of
Proposition 215 with the Attorney General's Office. Each of the officers
present at the Satterfield home will be named in the document, she said.

Metcalf said according to information she has from a two-year federal Drug
Enforcement Agency study, one square foot of an optimum indoor garden can
produce 23.1 grams of dried marijuana buds, less than an ounce. There are
28 grams in an ounce.

She said an entire plant grown indoors is capable of producing about 3 to 4
ounces.

Furthermore, yields from the plant will depend on a number of factors
including seed stock, weather conditions, disease, mold and theft, Metcalf
said.

She said the police weigh the entire plant, roots and all, when making
their estimations.

"They are weighing them wet," Metcalf said. "You can't smoke them wet."

Yuba County District Attorney Pat McGrath said he agrees with the sign held
by one demonstrator, "Dr.'s not D.A.'s."

"I'd be the first one to hold up that sign," he said. "I can guarantee
D.A.s do not want to be making medical decisions. That's not our job."

But because the law is poorly written and because the doctors who give the
recommendations do not provide guidance or guidelines for its use, district
attorneys' offices have been put in that position, McGrath said.

He said doctors giving recommendations or approvals for marijuana use have
a medical obligation to tell their patients how much marijuana to use to
control their illness, just as they would with any other drug.

In Yuba County, his office has instructed local law enforcement to try to
evaluate cases on an individual basis, McGrath said.

For law enforcement purposes out in the field, five plants or less or 11/2
pounds of processed marijuana is acceptable if the person has a legitimate
recommendation from a doctor, he said.

"Beyond those numbers it becomes a question of how much, where it's located
and if there is an indication of other criminal activity," McGrath said.

While understandably most of the medical marijuana advocates have no trust
in studies associated with law enforcement, McGrath said he is happy to
rely on figures accumulated in a study done by the city of Berkeley in
preparation for writing its own medical marijuana ordinance.

According to the figures in that study - most of which came from Mikuriya -
the appropriate amount for an individual patient to have on hand is 2 1/2
pounds per year, or 10 plants, he said.

Based on the Berkeley figures a plant grown outside will conservatively
produce 4 to 6 ounces. An indoor plant will produce an ounce, McGrath said.

The study found 1 1/2 pounds per year to be sufficient, and in the most
extreme cases 2 1/2 pounds were necessary so they went with the larger
amount, he said.

But even using the Berkeley recommendations, the Satterfields were caught
with nearly two times as many plants as being deemed necessary for medical
need, McGrath said.

That brings into question whether they are medicinal or criminal users, he
said.

McGrath said anyone with concerns about amounts and the legalities
surrounding medical marijuana use can come to him for guidance on how to
stay within the law.

He does not take names or phone numbers, and the district attorney's office
does not keep a list of those who come in with questions, he said.

His first suggestion to those who have come to his office in the past is
not to grow an excessive number of plants and not to grow them in an open
location, McGrath said.

Doing so could invite burglaries and other public safety problems.

"I don't make any value judgments on this," he said.