SEATTLE POLICE CRACK DOWN ON MEDICAL-POT PURVEYOR

Last week, 77-year-old Ruby Seals felt good enough to come to the Green
Cross Patient Co-op in person to pick up her marijuana.

Before that, she was in a hospice, battling pancreatic cancer. But
marijuana, she says, helped her turn around the pain and vomiting that
caused her to lose more than 60 pounds.

This week, Seals won't be able to get the marijuana her doctor recommended.
On Joanna McKee's West Seattle garage door is a big sign: "CLOSED." Beside
it, she posted the "cease and desist" letter she received Friday from the
Seattle Police Department.

McKee has been openly helping patients get marijuana for nearly a decade,
providing what she calls "a community service" to help qualified patients
avoid buying pot on the street.

Now, less than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
California cannabis clubs cannot legally distribute marijuana as a "medical
necessity" for seriously ill patients, McKee must decide whether it's worth
the risks to continue her mission.

She doesn't want to go to jail, but neither does she want to abandon 1,500
patients, many of whom she says desperately need the drug to control
vomiting, nausea, tremors and other conditions for which prescription
medications haven't worked.

Seals swears marijuana saved her life. "It's the only thing that helps me,"
she says. "It keeps me from throwing up, and it helps me to eat."

Although a state law passed by voters in 1998 allows patients with
specified diseases to legally possess marijuana if they have permission
from their doctor, so-called cannabis clubs and cooperatives such as Green
Cross have been the subject of dispute for years. Police have long been
suspicious that patients -- and those who help them get marijuana, such as
McKee -- are simply drug users and suppliers.

Both the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and local federal
prosecutors concede that state law doesn't protect organizations like Green
Cross. "We've always had a pretty consistent discussion that what they're
doing doesn't fit within the statute," says Dan Satterberg, spokesman for
Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng.

At the same time, prosecutors have said they have no interest in hauling
sick people into court. In most places around the country, obtaining
convictions of patients or those who help them has been difficult.

The law says each patient can have one caregiver who can grow or supply
marijuana, and each caregiver can have one patient at a time. McKee argues
that could mean "one patient now, and one patient in one minute."

After the Supreme Court ruling, both state and federal prosecutors said
nothing had changed. But in McKee's neighborhood, complaints to police from
a block-watch group began mounting.

In June, McKee says, police began talking to Green Cross patients and
asking McKee questions.

Police spokesman John Hayes says the Supreme Court decision clarified a
gray area, and last week's letter simply explains the Police Department's
current understanding of the limits of the law.

But the letter also warns of "arrest and prosecution" for having more than
one patient.

Leo Poort, a department legal adviser, says it's clear the law doesn't
protect a caregiver with more than one patient. He realizes that the law
left unclear how patients who couldn't grow their own marijuana would
obtain it, he said. But, he adds, "It's not fair to law enforcement to have
a law passed by the people and not have it enforced as written."

Dr. Rob Killian, a Seattle family-practice doctor who was a major force
behind Initiative 692, which allowed certain patients to legally use
marijuana, believes police in Seattle and elsewhere around Puget Sound have
recently stepped up busts of patients and suppliers.

"There seems to be something going on," he said. "I'm afraid, honestly.
Where is this going? Is the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) going to
go after doctors? Are they going to go after our licenses?"

Killian notes that police have long been skeptical about the legitimacy of
using marijuana for medical reasons.

Last year, Seattle police produced a training video that depicts a hippie
faker trying to take advantage of the medical-marijuana law. The video
begins with a clean-cut officer politely knocking at the door of "Mr.
Rumpwhistle," a dark-glasses-wearing "patient" in no apparent pain or
discomfort, who spacily offers the officer a plate of brownies and produces
a doctor's letter signed by "Dr. Timothy Leary," the infamous LSD proponent
who died five years ago.

Hayes says the video wasn't intended to be disrespectful toward legitimate
patients, but to help illustrate the types of situations officers can
encounter, and to outline a protocol for collecting evidence, including
letters from physicians to verify compliance with the law.

McKee maintains there is no other good way for some patients to get
marijuana. McKee requires, as does the law, a signed statement from a
patient's doctor and asks for a donation, but says she hasn't turned away
those who can't pay.

"Is it better to have these people roaming the streets in their wheelchairs
and getting mugged?" she asks.

Dr. Greg Carter, a Centralia rehabilitation-medicine specialist, e-mailed
Seattle Mayor Paul Schell yesterday on Green Cross' behalf. He said he has
recommended Green Cross to 30 or 40 patients, most with multiple sclerosis,
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), spinal-cord injuries
or chronic pain.

Carter said Green Cross always checks the legitimacy of the doctor's letter
and will deliver to homebound patients. "It would be a tragedy to lose that
resource," Carter wrote.

Green Cross lawyers and police say they will continue to discuss Green
Cross' situation. "If (McKee) is making a good-faith effort to comply with
the law," says Poort, that will lessen the chance of investigation and
prosecution.

Seals and other Green Cross patients hope a solution comes soon.

"I don't know what we'll do," she says. "We can't go out on the street and
get it. That's the horrible part. It means taking life away from me, as far
as I'm concerned.

"What are people like me going to do? Suffer until they die? That ain't
right. I don't care what they think -- it's wrong. They should give
(marijuana) to people, people sick like me, people dying with cancer. What
the police did is terrible. They need to learn where priorities lie."