MEDICAL DEFENSE SLIPS INTO POT TRIAL

Bryan James Epis doesn't strike one as a person likely to be found in the
vortex of a national controversy.

His soft, friendly features, mellow demeanor and low-key conversational
manner leave an impression of inner peace rather than outer turmoil.

But the husky, 35-year-old son of a well-to-do Silicon Valley woman finds
himself a poster boy for pro-medical marijuana forces -- and in a fight for
his freedom that could end with 10 years behind bars.

His famous lawyer, J. Tony Serra, is trying to counter the
marijuana-growing charges with a medical-necessity defense in Sacramento
federal court, where medical necessity is, by law, not a defense.

That may sound improbable, but it would be an understatement. Longtime
observers agree it is one of the most bizarre trials in the court's history.

State law allows seriously ill people who have a doctor's recommendation
the use of marijuana to alleviate pain and debilitating physical side
effects of other treatments. Federal law bans pot for any purpose.

Epis was associated with a cannabis buyer's club in Chico, and his
prosecution is the first involving such an organization to get to a federal
jury.

But when the trial started, words such as "cannabis club," "medicine,"
"patient," and "doctor's recommendation," were verboten by order of U.S.
District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr., who was following the dictates of the
U.S. Supreme Court. The judge and opposing lawyers even agreed on a
euphemism for the Chico cannabis club -- "dispensary."

That was two weeks ago. Despite Congress, the Supreme Court, Damrell and
prosecutor Samuel Wong, the wily Serra has been able to get his client's
medical defense before the jury of eight women and four men. On Wednesday
in his closing argument, he implored them to follow their consciences.

At first, it was by inference in his opening statement and the way he
questioned witnesses. But by Tuesday and Wednesday, all the barriers were
down. Wong himself was referring to "patients" in his cross-examination of
Epis and "cannabis clubs" in his closing argument, and Damrell was
acknowledging that Proposition 215 -- California's 1996 medical marijuana
initiative -- and its role in the defendant's motive "is clearly before the
jury."

Damrell announced to the attorneys Wednesday that he would instruct the
jury today to "disregard all evidence relative to the manufacturing of
marijuana for medicinal use." He said: "We are clearly beyond the margin in
this case. I've tried to go over this minefield carefully but obviously not
successfully."

Wong and his case agent, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent
Ronald Mancini, are scornful of the medical defense.

Chico Medical Marijuana Caregivers "was a scam set up with Prop. 215 as a
shield for the manufacture and marketing of marijuana," Wong told Damrell.
The prosecutor said that the club was selling blank recommendations already
signed by a physician. Because he could produce none, the judge would not
let him make the accusation before the jury.

"You just like to get high, right?" Wong demanded of Epis on
cross-examination, but the defendant insisted he smoked marijuana for
chronic pain. Beyond that, he steadfastly maintained that he simply wanted
to help sick people.

Although he admits cultivating pot, he denies the only two charges in the
indictment: that he conspired to build his operation to more than 1,000
plants and that his own crop ever exceeded 100 plants.

Epis was born in Mountain View and grew up in neighboring Los Altos, an
affluent Santa Clara County community. While a junior in high school, he
was in a near-fatal car wreck, suffering severe head, knee and back
injuries. He lost his father, an electrical engineer, shortly after that to
a heart attack.

The wreck left Epis with ongoing back pain from two compressed vertebrae.
He testified that he began smoking marijuana because, unlike other
painkillers, it does not make him lethargic. He said, however, that he has
not smoked it since he was arrested in 1997.

When he enrolled at California State University, Chico, in 1985, Epis'
mother bought a house in Chico, where he has lived off and on ever since.
He earned an electrical-engineering degree from Chico State and a degree
from Cal Northern School of Law, also in Chico.

Evidence seized during law enforcement's raid on a 1997 pot crop in the
basement of that Chico residence forms the basis of the charges.

Epis testified that he first grew marijuana at the residence in 1993 and
1994 for the Cannabis Buyers' Club in San Francisco. The club was founded
in 1991 by medical marijuana pioneer Dennis Peron and sold pot to patients
whose doctors prescribed it. For years it operated illegally and openly
with little interference from law enforcement.

Butte County's eradication team first raided Epis' house in 1994, but the
evidence was later suppressed when the search was ruled unconstitutional.

With the passage of Proposition 215 in November 1996, Epis began growing
pot again and helped finance the Chico buyers' club.

His goal, he testified, was not to profit. On the contrary, he said, he
hoped to persuade growers who were supplying the cannabis clubs springing
up all over the state to lower their prices so more patients would have
access to the drug.

He said he felt club operators should have been telling growers that "times
have changed. It is outrageous" for club members "to have to pay $80 for an
eighth" of an ounce, Epis told the jury.

He estimated that he spent 10 hours a week at the Chico club in the spring
of 1997 and another 10 hours a week working on the marijuana crops in his
basement. At the same time, he said, he was going to law school, caring
part time for his 3-year-old daughter and "learning program languages for
the Internet."

That same year, Epis started an online service for hotel reservations that
has become "very successful," he testified.

When the narcotics enforcers came along June 25, 1997, he was about to get
out of the medical marijuana business because he had too many other things
going and because he was frustrated with certain aspects of the venture,
Epis said.

The jury will begin deliberations today.