RAID YIELDS PLANTS

PETROLIA -- The medical marijuana issue resurfaced at the annual Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting media tour on Thursday.

The tour also provided public information on the 17-year-old C. A. M. P.
program, a multi-agency seasonal task force that operates throughout
California.

Statewide C.A.M.P. Operations Cmdr. Sonya Barna said the task force has
probably broken its annual record for marijuana plants eradicated as of
Thursday. The statewide total for this year has probably exceeded the
record of approximately 241,000 plants, she said.

On the tour, officers led reporters to a homestead a few miles southeast of
Petrolia, where they cut down dozens of marijuana plants that they said
they had seen from a helicopter days before.

Residents of the property arrived, and said that the plants was being grown
for sick people under California's medical marijuana law. There was no
visible indication that the marijuana plants were being grown for medical
marijuana users. There was an exchange of words while television cameras
rolled and helicopters hovered overhead.

Officers seized several dozen plants, which were hauled away for
destruction. No arrests were made, but the Humboldt County Sheriff's
Department assigned the incident a case number, and deputies said that the
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office would be notified.

Sheriff's department Sgt. Wayne Hanson, the man in charge of C.A.M.P. in
Humboldt County, said that he did not know the marijuana was being grown by
medical marijuana advocates Robert Goforth and Steven Tuck, or that
Goforth's sister owned the property.

On Thursday morning, word of C.A.M.P.'s presence apparently spread quickly
through the area as a caravan of law enforcement and media vehicles drove
to a helicopter landing zone neat the Mattole River's mouth.

In a briefing, C.A.M.P. officers said they would locate a "good garden,"
without people near it, where the media could watch them eradicate
marijuana plants.

C.A.M.P. officers took off in one of two helicopters at the landing zone to
find some of the gardens that they had already mapped out.

The caravan of vehicles passed back over Petrolia-area roads, where
residents stood in their yards and sat in lawn chairs, waving and making
gestures.

The law enforcement and media vehicles arrived at a gate closed with a
padlock and chain, so officers cut the chain.

They had previously explained that they did not need a search warrant for
"open-field" marijuana spotted from the air.

Two men who said they were working on a construction project on the
homestead drove to the gate and told reporters not to enter the property.
After a short time, officers said that reporters could enter the property,
and they did.

Sheriff's deputies and officers from one of three statewide C.A.M.P. teams
- -- consisting of California Highway Patrol officers, metropolitan police
officers, U.S. Army National Guard troops and state Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement agents -- walked along small twisting trails through heavy
brush toward the marijuana.

The plants were growing in small clumps in heavy brush, and were almost all
connected to a network of black irrigation hoses.

Officers pointed out what they said were the typical debris of a growing
operation, including empty fertilizer bags and rat and mouse traps.
Sometimes, paint, chemicals and even traps intended for humans are found,
they said, pointing out that marijuana cultivation can be harmful to the
environment.

The plants were between about 6 and 12 feet tall, and officers said they
were a few weeks from maturity. A deputy said that some of the larger
plants would have yielded about 2 pounds of dried buds, worth about $10,000.

A deputy photographed himself taking a sample from one of the plants for
evidence.

A pungent smell filled the afternoon air as officers began to saw and hack
the plants to the ground and drag them back to their vehicles. Their gloves
became coated with black resin as they loaded a pickup with the marijuana.
A Guardsman jumped up and down on the plants in the truck to pack them down.

A helicopter overhead hovered over more patches to show officers on the
ground where the marijuana was.

The pickup was fully loaded by the time Goforth, who owns the Petrolia
Store with his wife, arrived. A woman from a Eureka legal agency and people
who had apparently been in a house on the property when officers arrived
also gathered on a road in the homestead.

Goforth said that he and others had been growing the marijuana for
seriously ill people who have medical marijuana recommendations from
physicians, and that he was giving it to them in exchange for the cost of
cultivation. About 200 plants were growing on the homestead, he said.

On Aug. 22, Hanson and other officers seized more than 50 plants from a
property that Goforth owns, also near Petrolia. Those plants were in an
open field and marked with a large red cross, and marijuana recommendations
for five people, according to Goforth.

Goforth was asked why the plants seized on Thursday were not marked as
medical marijuana.

"It's true, there were no signs," he said. "I don't really know what to say
about that."

Goforth said that he had "at least 16 caregiver scripts" at the homestead.
There may have been more marijuana there than 16 people need, but more
patients join the cooperative that he is a part of all the time, he said.

"They can't wait six or eight months for the medicine to grow," he said.
"When you count loss to thievery, deer, rats and mice, I don't think this
was too much."

Tuck, another medical marijuana advocate who is associated with Goforth,
arrived on the property. On July 24, officers seized 839 plants that Tuck
was growing on a Wilder Ridge property. The district attorney's office said
later that it would not file criminal cultivation charges against him. Tuck
said that he has since moved to the homestead that C.A.M.P. was at on Thursday.

Hanson joined the conversation, and there was a heated exchange of words.

Hanson asked Goforth who owned the recently seized plants, and Goforth said
they belonged to patients.

Goforth told Hanson that he could show him the caregiver certificates, but
Tuck asked Goforth why he should bother, since the marijuana was already
cut down.

Hanson said, "This (marijuana) was not marked, and co-ops are illegal in
Humboldt County."

Medical marijuana guidelines released recently by the district attorney say
that a person can only legally grow marijuana for themselves or for a
person for whom they are "a primary caregiver." The caregiver "must
consistently assume responsibility for the housing, health or safety of
that that person," the guidelines state.

Hanson said that he had no comment regarding the medical marijuana issue
"at this time."

Sheriff Dennis Lewis, who was out of town on Thursday, has said that he
interprets the medical marijuana law to mean that a person cannot legally
grow for another person who does not live with the grower.

Medical marijuana advocates have said that they will bring the issue of
whether a person can grow for others, in a cooperative arrangement, to
civil court.

People on both sides of the issue have said that they would welcome clear
medical marijuana guidelines from the state Legislature.

One man at the homestead showed Hanson his marijuana recommendation, and
Hanson left him two plants.

Later, C.A.M.P. officers lowered from a helicopter on a cable cut and then
took two plants that residents said were the same two that Hanson had
spared. Residents passed a joint to each other as they watched the
helicopter leave.

At the Petrolia Store, reaction to C.A.M.P. activity in the area was mixed.
Most people said they resented the attention, and that animals were
frightened by the helicopters. A horse recently ran through a fence because
it was scared by the noise, a woman said.

One family of ranchers, however, said that they were glad C.A.M.P. was in
the area.