MEDICAL POT ACTIVISTS CONVERGE

Group Will Ask County Officials to Assist in Bid to Ease Drug
Laws

CATHEDRAL CITY -- Nearly three decades after she started using
marijuana following a stroke, Patty Thomas said she still relies on
the drug for relief.

Thomas of Palm Springs described how marijuana provides refuge from
pain associated with her lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease of the
skin, joints, blood and kidneys.

"Yeah, it gets me high," Thomas told about 40 other people Sunday
during a pro-marijuana rally in Cathedral City. "It makes me forget
about my pain and I can get on with my life."

Thomas and the others gathered at the Cathedral City Library showed up
to hear from cannabis activist and former gubernatorial candidate
Dennis Peron, but they also shared their own stories about the value
of the drug in their lives.

Peron, who spoke with increasing passion throughout the event, urged
the audience to join him in a crusade to lift restrictions on laws
that regulate marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

"I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a politician," Peron said
of the roles he's assumed during his lifelong campaign to loosen drug
laws. "But I became all these," he added, imploring the audience to
join him.

"I'm asking you to become a doctor, become a lawyer, become a
politician," Peron said.

One locally based band of activists is taking Peron's vision before
the Riverside County Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

Leaders of the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project of the Coachella
Valley will ask the supervisors to pressure district attorney Grover
Trask to clarify the way law enforcement differentiates between
legitimate and illegal use and possession of the drug.

Lanny Swerdlow, director of the activist group, accused Trask of
overzealous scrutiny of medical marijuana users.

"We've got to stop people being arrested in Riverside County,"
Swerdlow said.

According to a 1996 ballot initiative and a 2004 supplement to the
act, people with a doctor's permission are allowed up to six mature
pot plants for medical purposes.

Trask was unavailable for comment Sunday, but in letters to Swerdlow
the district attorney said hard and fast criteria for deciding on
cases would be impractical and could harm the public.

"This office would not want to mislead the public by announcing
discretionary marijuana quantity guidelines, the following of which
could still subject citizens to arrest and imprisonment by federal
authorities," Trask wrote in 2001.

LaVonne Victor, a multiple sclerosis patient from Temecula who
recently had drug charges against her dropped, credited her knowledge
of state law, including for escaping prosecution.

Victor, who uses a wheelchair due to severe spinal cord pain, was
arrested and charged in 1999 for growing pot.

The dropped charges proved she was right, Victor said.

"We were following the law and they knew it," she said.