CASE HIGHLIGHTS MEDICAL-POT DILEMMA

The lush, green replacements began arriving the day after an Olympic
Peninsula-based drug task force raided Steve Sarich's North Everett
home, carting away an estimated 1,500 marijuana plants.

By Sunday, nine days after the Jan. 13 raid, Sarich's new nursery
numbered 50 plants -- eight big enough for their own pots, 15
starter-sized plants with roots and 27 freshly cut clones, each stuck
into its own egg-sized pod of sod.

"If they didn't arrest me with 1,500, it's not likely they're going to
come back and arrest me for 50," said Sarich, whose advocacy group,
CannaCare, says it has provided marijuana plants for 1,200 patients
all over the state. Some of his new plants, delivered by patients in
Longview, Federal Way and Vancouver, Wash., are descendants of the
plants he lost.

Now he's waiting to see what comes next.

The U.S. Attorney's Office will decide whether to prosecute Sarich in
U.S. District Court, said Jeff Eig, a spokesman for the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA).

In that instance, Sarich could be in serious trouble, because federal
courts don't recognize the state's Medical Marijuana Act, approved by
voters in 1998. Washington is among 11 states with some form of
legalized marijuana use for certain medical patients, including those
under treatment for cancer, intractable pain, glaucoma and seizures.

"There's no such thing as medical marijuana," Eig said, flatly
discounting such laws.

If federal prosecutors decline to take the case, investigators could
offer it to Snohomish County prosecutors, who would look at Sarich's
case in light of the state law. But that's tricky, too, because state
law doesn't address the question of how medical-marijuana users may
legally obtain their pot, or define how many plants each person may
possess.

Instead, it states that each person -- or that person's caretaker -- may
possess a 60-day supply, which isn't defined. The law doesn't touch
the subject of who may legally provide plants to patients or their
caretakers.

"They have to get them from somewhere. They don't just spring out of
the air," said Sarich, who has medical authorization to use marijuana
to alleviate spinal pain, but says he only produced plants to give to
other patients.

Snohomish County Prosecutor Janice Ellis called the conflicting state
and federal laws "troubling."

Ellis, who chairs the governor's Council on Substance Abuse, said
Sarich came into her office in December to discuss CannaCare's legal
goals. She remembers he talked about the starter plants he grows for
other patients, but she doesn't recall whether he discussed the size
of his nursery.

"The image he is presenting, and I think very effectively, is that he
is someone who is trying hard to bring integrity to the debate of
medical marijuana," Ellis said. "The law doesn't provide a mechanism
through which people can legally obtain plants and grow their own for
medical needs."

The Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force also was aware that Sarich was
growing medicinal marijuana, said team commander Pat Slack. The team
prioritizes a very busy caseload, he said, and Sarich didn't seem to
merit scrutiny.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who helped create the state
medical-marijuana initiative, said she plans to introduce a bill this
session to clarify patients' rights to obtain and grow marijuana and
to better define "caretaker." Today, she was scheduled to meet with
state prosecutors, police and sheriffs associations to seek support
and consensus for her proposal.

Marijuana leaves contain usable amounts of THC, the drug's active
ingredient, only when the plants are in their flower or bud stages,
Sarich said, adding that none of his seized plants were in bud.

The West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET), serving Kitsap
and Mason counties on the Olympic Peninsula, says Sarich drew
attention when he and an associate, John Worthington of Renton, filed
declarations in a federal case against another alleged marijuana grower.

A team detective -- Roy Alloway, a Kitsap County Sheriff's deputy --
persuaded a Kitsap County judge to grant a search warrant for Sarich's
home by portraying that unnamed alleged grower, a Vashon Island man,
as a major drug distributor who operated across state lines.

Alloway wrote, in the court document, that Worthington had threatened
legal action against WestNET for allegedly using state funds to
enforce federal marijuana laws.

That combination of factors led Alloway to investigate the pair, he
wrote. That investigation turned up Sarich's high power bill, which
was consistent with marijuana production. Alloway also said he went to
Sarich's home and smelled marijuana from a nearby alley.

Sarich and Worthington, whose home was raided Jan. 12, say Alloway
lied to the judge to retaliate against them for their yearlong
investigation into WestNET's raids on medical-marijuana patients.

Sarich calls the problem "entrapment by initiative." Drug teams raid
the homes of medicinal-marijuana patients, then turn their cases over
to federal prosecutors to circumvent the state law, he said.

"The state tells you you're legal, then the state sends in a
state-funded drug task force, manned by state employees, who then turn
you over to the feds," Sarich said.

Sgt. Carlos Rodriguez, leader of WestNET, said he didn't know about
Sarich's advocacy work for medical marijuana, and he laughed at the
men's claim that Alloway carried a personal vendetta against them.

We wouldn't be in business if we took retaliatory-type actions," he
said.