MEN ARRESTED FOR GROWING POT PLANTS ACQUITTED

SANTA ROSA (AP) Two men arrested for growing more than 800 pot plants
were acquitted Wednesday on charges of cultivating and possessing
marijuana.

A Sonoma County jury found Kenneth E. Hayes and Michael S. Foley not
guilty after a day of deliberations.

The two men had claimed they were growing the plants for the
1,200-members of a San Francisco medical marijuana club called CHAMP --
Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems. Hayes ran the club.

The pair was arrested in May 1999 after officers found the plants in a
greenhouse near Petaluma.

Prosecutors said Hayes and Foley grew the marijuana for profit and were
not the patients' primary caregivers. That definition was at issue
because state law, approved by voters as Proposition 215, allows
marijuana possession with a physician's approval for medical patients
and their caregivers.