FEDS GET INVOLVED IN LOCAL DRUG CASE

One week after Seattle police returned hundreds of patient files and
a computer hard drive taken in a raid from a University District
medical marijuana cooperative and local prosecutors declined to press
charges, federal drug agents have gotten involved in the case.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Friday took control from
Seattle police of about 12 ounces of medical marijuana and about 2
pounds of less-potent leaves seized from co-op head Martin Martinez,
according to the DEA. Martinez operates Lifevine, a private
collective of patients who work together to grow their own medical marijuana.

Martinez's lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, had asked the Police Department to
return the marijuana, arguing that Martinez had a legal right to it
under Washington's medical marijuana law. However, because marijuana
is illegal under federal law, U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan asked the
DEA to take it and destroy it.

"Accordingly, the DEA has seized and processed the marijuana for
destruction; that concludes this matter," the agency said Wednesday
in a statement released by Seattle-based spokeswoman Jodie Underwood.

Hiatt said Wednesday that Seattle police attorney Leo Poort had
notified him in a letter that, "At the request or demand of the U.S.
attorney's office, the marijuana seized by the Seattle Police
Department ... pursuant to a search warrant issued by a local court .
was transferred Friday to the Drug Enforcement Administration."

A call to Poort Wednesday afternoon was not returned.

Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in
Seattle, said there was nothing unusual about the federal involvement.

"Law enforcement destroys drugs in the normal course of business all
the time," Langlie said.

But the DEA's involvement in the case alarmed Martinez, who had begun
to relax after the initial July 15 bust and was focusing on changing
the location of his Northeast 50th Street office after neighbors
complained of smelling pot, said Hiatt.

Seattle police, armed with a search warrant, carted away marijuana
and hundreds of private patient files, and tore down a wall in search
of a marijuana patch that didn't exist.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg later declined to press
charges, and most of the items were returned.

Martinez suffers from neurological damage from a motorcycle accident
and was one of the first people in King County to use medical
necessity as a defense against prosecution for using marijuana. He
helped pass the 1998 law and also runs Cascadia NORML, a
public-outreach organization that provides ID cards to
medical-marijuana patients so they can show police they have a legal right.

Hiatt said he had not heard directly from the U.S. attorney's office
or the DEA. But he called the seizure the latest in a series of
assaults by the government on Washington patients' legal right to
grow and use medical marijuana, established by a 1998
medical-marijuana initiative that voters approved overwhelmingly. The
law allows people with certain serious ailments to grow their own
marijuana and use it if authorized by a physician.

"Washington voters wanted this. It's a compassionate thing, and the
federal government should butt out," Hiatt said. "The DEA should
return the marijuana to the Seattle Police Department and leave us alone."