SHERIFF REJECTS JUDGE'S ORDER TO RETURN POT

Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis is defying Superior Court Judge
Bruce Watson's order to return medical marijuana seized about two years
ago from a Garberville man.

"My position is that a state judge cannot order me to violate a federal
law," Lewis said Thursday. "And that's the basis we're proceeding on."

Watson signed an order in January stating the Sheriff's Department must
return the marijuana to Chris Robert Giaque, a medical marijuana patient
whose approximately 1-ounce stash was seized during a traffic stop in
April 1999.

When Giaque went to pick up his marijuana earlier this month, Giaque's
attorney Russ Clanton said, the Sheriff's Department refused to give it
back. Clanton then sent his investigator to the Sheriff's Department. He
was told that on orders from the sheriff, the marijuana was not to be
returned.

Now Clanton wants Lewis to be held in contempt of court.

"The sheriff's intransigence appears to be rooted in political distaste
for the type of property ordered returned, and the legislation which
compels it," Clanton stated in an "order to show cause" filed this week.

"These are not valid reasons for refusing to obey a court order. ... No
one is above the law, and it is particularly important that those
charged with enforcing the law uphold it themselves."

Lewis noted that the issue of state versus federal marijuana law is
"currently, in fact today, before the federal Supreme Court. Hopefully
we'll get some court clarification on this."

The County Counsel's Office hired an attorney to represent the Sheriff's
Department during last year's local court battle over whether the
marijuana should be returned to Giaque.

Watson ultimately ruled federal law does not pre-empt California voters
from approving the medical use of marijuana, and that under state
Proposition 215 "some level of transportation must be contemplated."

Cliff Mitchell, the attorney representing the county, had argued that
under federal law marijuana is not legal property. He also contended
state Proposition 215 applies only to possession of marijuana and not
transportation.

Watson's ruling specified that the very small amount Giaque was
transporting "would come within that permitted."

Giaque also is battling the Sheriff's Department over its seizure of 84
large marijuana plants he was growing near Garberville. The plants were
confiscated in August. Giaque claimed he was growing the pot for himself
and several other medical marijuana patients.

The dispute over the 84 plants has not gone to court.