DRIVE TO RECALL MARIN D.A. UNDAUNTED BY POT RULING

Paula Kamena Is One Of 6 Statewide Targets

Defiant medical pot users vowed yesterday to plow ahead with the recall of
Marin County District Attorney Paula Kamena despite the U.S. Supreme Court
decision affirming the federal prohibition against all pot.

Kamena, who faces a recall election on Tuesday, is one of six district
attorneys throughout the state who have been made targets for taking what
marijuana advocates say is a hard line against the use of the weed as medicine.

"It is imperative that the voters replace policymakers who are
nonresponsive or have hidden agendas, with people who will carry the
medicinal marijuana bill to Congress," Lynnette Shaw, founding director of
the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said in the wake of Monday's high
court decision. "We are supporting replacement of our district attorney
with someone who will uphold the law and protect the patients and prevent
them from being arrested."

The Kamena recall is serving as a kind of test case in a statewide effort
to force prosecutors to honor Proposition 215, the 1996 state initiative
allowing the cultivation and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

She is the first district attorney to face a vote of the people -- despite
what she and her supporters say is a relatively progressive stance on
medical marijuana.

Kamena, 55, is one of 15 district attorneys who have set guidelines for
marijuana prosecutions. Her policy exempts people with fewer than seven
mature plants, 12 immature plants and a half-pound of dried cannabis.

Marijuana advocates insist that Kamena's guidelines do not prevent the
arrest of patients, suppliers or the confiscation of their plants.
Besides, they say, suppliers of medical marijuana typically need to
stock more pot than her policy allows.

Nobody knows what affect the Supreme Court ruling will have on Proposition
215, let alone county policies. There is no doubt, however, that Kamena and
other prosecutors are caught between state policies that are open for
interpretation and a hard-line federal law.

Kamena said the federal ruling should strengthen her position against those
who want a more liberal interpretation of the state law, but she does not
plan to change her guidelines even if she wins the recall.

"Our policy is to respect people's rights to use medicinal marijuana,"
Kamena said, "so unless there is some more definitive information or some
action against Proposition 215, we will continue to follow the spirit of
the law."

Since being elected in 1998, Kamena has expanded programs that assist
victims of child abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence, and her
office has won convictions in 97 percent of the felony cases it has
prosecuted in Superior Court.

Her plight now is the result of a strange confluence of events.

It all started with the attempted recall of several judges who, at one time
or another, handled a case involving Carol Mardeusz.

Mardeusz lost custody of her daughter in Sonoma County in 1995 after a
bitter court battle with the father. She was denied visitation a year
later when she did not get a court-ordered psychological evaluation.

Mardeusz has been peppering the courts with legal challenges, including
allegations that the father molested the child. She was declared a
vexatious litigant in Sonoma County, and prosecutors in Sonoma and Marin
concluded that the allegations against the father were at best unprovable.

A jury in Marin County found her guilty last year of falsifying a court
order and perjuring herself in an attempt to steal custody of her daughter.
A subsequent psychological evaluation found her to be delusional.

Mardeusz, however, became a cause celebre for a large group of divorced
parents unhappy with the outcome of their child custody cases. Citing a
vast conspiracy, the group attempted to recall the judges -- and when that
failed, they enlisted the help of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana
to get Kamena.

The alliance gathered enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot,
despite allegations by the Marin County League of Women Voters that the
public was tricked into believing medical marijuana was the issue when the
petition mentioned only the family law matter.

The only replacement candidate for Kamena's job is Tom Van Zandt, who is
Mardeusz's brother.

A patent lawyer, he has never held an administrative job in a district
attorney's office or even prosecuted a criminal case. If the recall is
successful he would need only one vote to become the top prosecutor in
Marin County.

"I think it's a travesty that if I am recalled, the brother of the woman
who started all this would be the D.A.," Kamena said. "Politicizing the
district attorney's office is a major step toward injustice."

Van Zandt, who did not return repeated phone calls, has said in various
public forums that his lack of a background in criminal law will not be a
detriment.

When asked why her cannabis club did not put up their own candidate, Shaw
said Van Zandt has promised to dismantle Kamena's policy and replace it
with one that is more in step with the spirit of Proposition 215.

The Marin Alliance Legal Defense Fund Committee has raised $9,870, compared
with the $79,628 in Kamena's campaign fund. Van Zandt put $40,000 into
his own campaign.

Kamena has won the support of almost every politician in the region --
including state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, a
longtime advocate of legislation allowing the use of medical marijuana.

The Marin policy is relatively standard when compared with the other 14
counties that spelled it out. Mendocino County, which pot aficionados hold
up as an example of a program that works, has the same rules as Marin,
except it allows up to two pounds of "processed marijuana."