VALLEY DRUG-FIGHTERS HONORED

Modesto health collective was busted, accused of fronting big-time pot
crime.

A high-profile Modesto marijuana bust has earned local agents national
acclaim.

It's also showing how a Central Valley anti-drug task force has
expanded its turf.

In a ceremony today, the White House drug czar is honoring the state,
local and federal officers who took down Modesto's California
Healthcare Collective. Officials charge the ostensibly nonprofit
collective with fronting for big-time marijuana dealers.

"Most health-care providers wear white coats and carry stethoscopes,"
said Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based Central Valley High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. "In this particular case, they wore
bulletproof vests [and] carried a gun."

Ruzzamenti nominated the Modesto police officers and others who are
receiving the so-called National Marijuana Initiative awards. He is
also accompanying them to the event, held in the ornate Old Executive
Office Building next to the White House.

The awards themselves are modest: a certificate and a handshake from
Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters.

Still, they are piling up for Californians.

Walters is handing out three other awards today, as well, to
California officers and investigators.

The honors are going to analysts at a Sacramento-based "intelligence
fusion center," to a Central Valley "marijuana investigations team"
and to the statewide California Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

With four national awards -- out of a total of 15 being presented
today -- the California anti-pot efforts exceed any other region.

Modesto police officers, Fresno sheriff's deputies, the director of
California's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and others all flocked
back for the show.

"We have so much activity here, and we have some really good folks,"
Ruzzamenti said.

But meth, not marijuana, was Ruzzamenti's original
focus.

The longtime narcotics agent began the Central Valley HIDTA in 1999.
Congress provides relatively modest federal funding: a base amount of
$2.5 million, plus another $2.5 million or so added on.

The federal funds pay for Ruzzamenti, intelligence analysts and some
support personnel serving the area from Sacramento to
Bakersfield.

The real muscle, though, comes from upward of 120 state, local and
federal agents, officers and deputies who coordinate their work with
federal assistance.

"This shows the level of commitment by the sheriffs and the police
chiefs," Ruzzamenti said of the latest award-winning work. "They don't
send us chumps."

The Central Valley HIDTA's mission statement avers that its goal is
"to reduce the manufacture, trafficking and distribution of
methamphetamine, precursor chemicals and other dangerous drugs."

Over time, the Valley's big meth labs have decamped for Mexico -- so
agents have sought new targets.

Jill Smith-Edwards, for instance, is an intelligence analyst from the
Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department. She is assigned to the
Sacramento-based intelligence fusion center, joining with California
National Guard Master Sgt. Kevin McLeer to coordinate anti-pot efforts
on public lands.

"Jill and Kevin have developed the art of bringing investigators and
analysts together," their award nomination states.

In Modesto, investigators say the California Healthcare Collective
earned some $8 million a year by selling marijuana, supposedly for
medicinal purposes. Agents with HIDTA's Stanislaus San Joaquin Meth
Task Force pitched in to investigate, as did many others.

Nine defendants affiliated with the California Healthcare Collective
now face federal charges, ranging from drug possession to money
laundering. All have pleaded not guilty and are free on bail.

"We followed California law to the letter," Luke Scarmazzo, former
manager of the marijuana center, stated in a recent letter. "We paid
our taxes. We went to work every day providing a benefit and service
to the community. Yet in the end, we were made out to look like common
criminals."