OFFICERS BREAK LAW

Police Refuse To Obey Decision Of State Voters On Medical Marijuana,
Prop. 215

Marvin Chavez goes to court again today in the courthouse in Santa Ana
(8:30 a.m., Third Floor, Dept. C55) in another test of the validity of
the voters' decision to permit patients with a recommendation from a
licensed physician to cultivate, possess and use cannabis
(marijuana).

You might remember that after years of being told, "If you don't like
the law, change it," medical marijuana activists and California voters
did so, passing Proposition 215, which is now Section 11362.5 of the
California Health and Safety Code. Chavez, who has a degenerative
spinal disease called ALS, campaigned for that law, uses marijuana
with a physician's recommendation and formed the Orange County Patient
Doctor Nurse Support Group.

He was in court a couple of years ago and was convicted of
distributing marijuana after the judge told the jury it wasn't allowed
to consider Section 11362.5 during its deliberations. After getting
out of prison pending appeal, he continued doing organizational and
educational work with the group but didn't distribute marijuana. As he
has done for several years - and as Carl Armbrust, the now retired
assistant DA who prosecuted his earlier case specifically acknowledged
he has the right to do under California law - he planted marijuana
plants in his back yard for his personal use.

In September, he was raided late at night by Santa Ana police, who
made him lie face-down on his sofa while they uprooted and seized all
his plants, went through his garage office with a fine-tooth comb and
took his computers and records. Each plant was identified as being for
medical use, but instead of taking photographs and samples so they
could determine whether his recommendation was legitimate and decide
whether to charge him, they simply seized all his medicine.

They knew who he was and something about his history. He wasn't
charged at the time, but Assistant District Attorney Vickie Hicks
later decided to charge him on several counts, including cultivation
for distribution. As nearly as I can tell (there may be something to
the contrary in the records seized but Marvin denies it staunchly) the
charges are based on the number of plants. The police and DA's office
just can't believe anybody could be growing more than 40 plants just
for his own use. It had to be for distribution. For better or worse,
however, California law contains no numerical limit on how many plants
a patient can cultivate.

When Oakland developed guidelines for enough plants to provide as much
medicine as the federal government still furnishes to seven authorized
patients (7 pounds a year), it came up with 96 plants outdoors or 144
indoors. The prosecution of Marvin Chavez looks to me like a form of
nullification of the law - not repealing the law outright but simply
deciding that it won't apply in this particular case. If a prospective
juror believes in nullification he or she will be dismissed post-haste.

Even as Orange County harasses Marvin Chavez - and police in Long
Beach, Ontario and elsewhere seize plants from certified patients -
Canada, Switzerland, Australia and Great Britain have authorized
medical marijuana and are considering full legalization. The Drug
Enforcement Administration has authorized the first patient trials on
the therapeutic qualities of cannabis in two decades. I would wonder
when California will catch up, but, in fact, California voters did it
more than five years ago.

State and local officials are sworn to uphold state law, not federal
law, in cases where the two differ. So when will officials stop
resisting the law?