MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVIST FREED

Bryan James Epis Is Released From Jail As the Supreme Court Decides the
Legality of State-Sanctioned Cooperatives That Grow Medicinal Pot.

At 3:58 p.m. Monday, Bryan James Epis, whose trial and conviction in
Sacramento made him a symbol of the federal government's war on medical
marijuana, walked out of prison.

Sentenced to 10 years, he was behind bars for two years and one month
before a federal appellate panel Monday ordered him freed until the U.S.
Supreme Court decides the fate of state-sanctioned medical marijuana
cooperatives that operate wholly within California.

In a brief telephone interview two hours after his release, the 37-year-old
Epis said he was grateful to be out, and was looking forward to a reunion
with his 11-year-old daughter, Ashley.

"I'm in Los Angeles and getting ready to have a beer," he said. "How cool
is that?"

Word of his release spread rapidly, and his San Francisco appeals attorney,
Brenda Grantland, was busy late Monday fielding calls from reporters and
members of the medical marijuana community.

"It looks real good for Bryan," she said in a telephone interview. "I'm
prepared to predict that he won't do another day in prison."

While Epis' appeal was pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals, the panel ruled in another case that federal authorities have no
power to go after noncommercial medical marijuana operations confined to a
state. The Epis appeal raises the same issue.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a review of the other case during its next
term, which begins in October.

Once the three 9th Circuit judges granted her motion for bail Monday,
Grantland spent hours on the phone convincing federal prison officials that
her client could be released on already-existing bail.

Epis' mother posted property valued at $500,000 when he was arrested in
1997, and the bond is still in place.

He holds electrical engineering and law degrees and had no prior criminal
record. But, after a jury found him guilty of conspiring to grow at least
1,000 marijuana plants and growing at least 100 plants in his Chico home,
U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. was obligated by federal
sentencing mandates to impose 10 years.

Epis denied there was a conspiracy and testified that he and four other
people, all with physician's recommendations in conformance with
California's Compassionate Use Act, were growing the pot for their own
treatment. Whatever was left over was given to a Chico cannabis club Epis
helped establish for distribution to its patients, he insisted.

But there is zero tolerance in federal law for medicinal pot, and Damrell
instructed the jury to disregard all mention of it during the trial.

Epis started using marijuana to manage chronic back pain from a car accident.

Asked Monday about the health care he received at the correctional facility
at Terminal Island near Los Angeles, he said: "Prison is not the place to
be if you're hurting. With pain, you have to be stoic.

"All I could do was a lot of stretching exercises, and keep telling myself
it would be over someday."

Epis and Grantland will hold a press conference in front of Sacramento's
U.S. Courthouse at 10 a.m. today.