TIPS LEAD TO TEACHER'S DRUG ARREST

BRYSON CITY — A Swain County teacher arrested on drug charges once
owned an Asheville business that aided advocates for medicinal and
industrial uses of marijuana. Delphia "Maria" Birchfield Keathley,
35, of Jenkins Branch Road, Bryson City, has been suspended from her
job as an English teacher at Swain High School, Superintendent Robert
White said Tuesday.

Police arrested Keathley after getting a tip that a teacher from
Bryson City was buying marijuana in Asheville and taking it home to
sell, according to a written statement from the Asheville Police
Department. She is charged with felony possession with intent to sell
and deliver marijuana, maintaining a vehicle for the sale of
marijuana and drug possession.

Keathley did not immediately return a telephone message seeking
comment. An anonymous caller left police a telephone message giving
detailed allegations on the spot where drugs were sold and the car
Keathley was driving — a yellow 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier, police said.
An undercover officer in an unmarked car spotted the Cavalier leaving
the area where the drugs were being sold just before 9 a.m. Monday,
according to police. The officer asked a marked patrol car to stop
the car for traffic violations.

Officers found Keathley behind the wheel and 6 ounces of marijuana in
the car, police said.

In the late 1990s, Keathley, then Maria Leatherwood, owned an
Asheville business called High Mountain Hemporium that sold hemp
products. Hemp is fiber made from the marijuana plant. Hemp is not a
drug. The business, now closed, was on Wall Street. The last tax bill
was mailed to Keathley's home in 2000. A group called Community of
Compassion for Cannabis often met there, said its co-founder, Steve
Rasmussen. Its official office was in Weaverville.

Maria was very helpful," he said. "Hemporium was a real center for
education and activism about cannabis and the fact that it is a
medicinal and industrial herb. I think it's very wrong that she is
being charged with possession. She is an activist." Community of
Compassion in 1999 unsuccessfully asked Asheville City Council to
make efforts to control marijuana the Police Department's lowest
priority. The group supports the medicinal and industrial uses of
marijuana as well as community education about the plant, Rasmussen
said. White said he could not comment on Keathley's former business.
He said Keathley has been a teacher for five years. He said he has
not had complaints about her.

Staff writer Jordan Schrader contributed to this report.