GRANDMA LOVING LIFE ON POT FARM

Former Elmiran Moves to California, Where Medical Marijuana is Legal

Sherrie Wilkie has found a home where the grass is not only greener, but legal.

Wilkie, a 66-year-old grandmother who was arrested in Elmira for running a
medical marijuana club, is now living on a marijuana farm in California,
where pot can legally be grown and smoked for medicinal purposes.

"It's like a big loving family here," Wilkie said of the farm on Tuesday in
a telephone interview. "I'm feeling better and healthier and I'm happier."

Wilkie moved March 13 to Eddy's Medicinal Gardens in Upper Lake, about 150
miles north of San Francisco. She left a few weeks after her case was
adjourned in Elmira City Court.

The private farm is run by Eddy Lepp, a 50-year-old Vietnam veteran and
outspoken marijuana reformer. Lepp is an ordained minister who says he
practices "spiritual reality."

He and his wife, Linda, have been growing and using marijuana for medical
purposes since 1996. Medical marijuana has been legal in California since
that year, said Lepp.

For the last two years, the Lepps have grown more than 50 varieties of
high-grade marijuana, much of it from Europe, on a half-acre plot on the
10-acre farm. They planted about 200 marijuana plants two years ago, said Lepp.

The Lepps, who both suffer from cancer, smoke most of the pot they grow and
give the rest away, says Eddy Lepp.

"We gave away over 250 pounds of medicinal marijuana last year," said Lepp,
who says he also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and other
ailments he says are alleviated by smoking marijuana. "Me and my wife smoke
25 to 26 pounds of it a year. Anything extra, we give away."

Wilkie learned about the Lepps through friends shortly after she was
arrested in December, when Elmira police raided her Southside Elmira
apartment and found nearly three pounds of high-grade marijuana and 40
grams of hashish.

Wilkie said she smoked the drugs to alleviate pain from arthritis and other
ailments. She also sold the pot to about a dozen club members who suffered
with AIDS, cancer and other illnesses.

Wilkie was busted for second-degree criminal possession of marijuana. The
charge was later reduced to fourth-degree criminal possession. In February,
City Court Judge Thomas E. Ramich told her the charge would be dropped if
she stays out of trouble for six months.

That's when Wilkie's lawyers and friends suggested she move to a state
where medical marijuana was legal. That place was sunny California and the
Lepp farm.

Wilkie's 45-year-old son, Randy, and his live-in girlfriend, Beverly
Kenney, live in Camarillo, Calif., about 500 miles from the Lepp farm.

Randy Wilkie flew to Elmira, rented a moving van, and on March 9, he and
his mother drove the four-day trip to California (Mom followed in her car).

The Lepps converted their garage into a spacious bedroom for Wilkie. The
farm is located in a rural, mountainous area overlooking Clear Lake and a
dormant volcano. The weather is warm -- 80s to 90s -- and dry and clear.

Wilkie lives there for free, working in the gardens, which include flowers,
herbs, shrubs, trees and fish ponds.

The farm is surrounded by a 7-foot-high fence and protected by high-tech
security devices, including video cameras, microphones, motion detectors,
infrared scopes and four dogs, said Lepp.

"A lot of people want to steal my marijuana," he said.

Wilkie chips in and buys groceries for the six to eight people who live
there, including a recovering alcoholic and a recovering drug addict. Lepp
doesn't allow alcohol or other drugs on his farm.

"She can stay here as long as she wants," Lepp says of Wilkie.

Wilkie, who survives on Social Security income, said she hopes to find her
own place and maybe even get a job as her health improves.

"You wouldn't believe she's the same person," says Kenney, a 46-year-old
medical transcriptionist. "She looks younger and healthier. She's finally
sleeping at night and she's walking less and less with her cane."

One of the first things Wilkie did when she arrived in California was get a
doctor's prescription to use marijuana, which she calls her "medicine."

"The medicine they grow here is good," says Wilkie, who smokes about 2
ounces a month. "It's right up there with the best stuff I had when I was
in Elmira.

"The people out here are totally amazing," she added. "They love to help
one another. The people who plant (the marijuana) even kiss the roots of
the plants before they put them in the ground. It's planted with so much
love and joy."

While in Elmira, Wilkie bought her pot from a medical marijuana club in New
York City. She ran her Elmira medical pot club for nearly four years, even
though it's illegal to possess, grow or use marijuana in New York.

Wilkie said she may return to Elmira to visit -- she has a daughter and
grandchildren here -- when she can afford it and when her six-month
"stay-out-of-trouble" period is over on Aug. 28.

"I don't think I'd want to come back to Elmira to live," she said. "I've
found a quality of life out here that they don't have back East."