DEA'S WAR ON THE SICK

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchison has said that his
agency's activities against medical marijuana use in California will not be
directed against individual patients but against traffickers and
distributors. The DEA raid last Thursday on the WAMM cooperative growing
project in Santa Cruz - as well as other cases in recent weeks - exposes
this claim as hollow. It looks as if the DEA, frustrated that California
law allows people with recommendations from physicians to use marijuana
medicinally, is conducting a concerted and frankly cruel campaign against
sick people.

The Santa Cruz operation was run by Valerie and Michael Corral, two
long-time activists who helped to write Prop. 215, the law voters approved
in 1996 to authorize medical use of marijuana. Their plot of about 100
plants was tended cooperatively with patients, most of them with terminal
illnesses. They worked closely with local law enforcement agencies, which
approved and supported the organization.

The cooperative included hospice-like counseling and group therapy
programs. It was probably the "cleanest" of all operations in California.
All members were certified patients, most were terminal, no money changed
hands, and the marijuana was exclusively for the use of patients who knew
one another.

Yet the DEA raided this eminently ethical and compassionate operation,
carting Valerie and Michael Corral off in handcuffs and handcuffing other
patients, including a paraplegic. It is an unwarranted and extreme
operation against sick people.

Lately the DEA, which used to view any "grow" of fewer than 1,000 plants to
be small potatoes unworthy of federal attention, seems to have been
targeting small-scale medical marijuana patient projects.

In Butte County the DEA destroyed Diane Monson's six plants after the local
DA pleaded to let her alone. In Sonoma County it raided Alan MacFarlane,
who had been acquitted by a local jury under state law for planting a
128-plant, 10-patient cooperative garden.

To be sure, federal law still prohibits marijuana. Such cruel raids suggest
that a law that can be used to terrorize sick people is in need of
reconsideration.