AUTHORITIES RAID RANCH OF MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS

For the second time in two years, authorities have raided the Lockwood
Valley ranch of marijuana activists Lynn and Judy Osburn, uprooting more
than 200 pot plants that supply hundreds of medicinal users in Ventura and
Los Angeles counties.

As the Osburns watched, two dozen investigators from the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency, assisted by Ventura County sheriff's deputies, last
week searched their wooded property 45 miles north of Ojai. No one was
arrested.

The Osburns, who maintain they are medicinal marijuana users with written
recommendations from doctors, grow marijuana for the 900 members of the Los
Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative, which dispenses the drug as allowed
under the state's 1996 voter-approved Proposition 215. While the seizure
Friday was the second raid at the couple's 60-acre farm, it's the first
time federal authorities have been involved. A DEA spokesman said the case
will be forwarded to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles for review.