GROWER WON'T BE CHARGED

The District Attorney's Office has decided not to charge Steven Tuck in
connection with the more than 800 marijuana plants he and others were
growing in the Wilder Ridge area, said Deputy District Attorney Nandor Vadas.

Tuck said the plants were being grown under the name of the Humboldt
Research Institute for about 120 people with medical marijuana recommendations.

On July 24, sheriff's deputies, led by Sgt. Wayne Hanson, entered the
Wilder Ridge property, detained several people while they acquired a
warrant, and seized 839 marijuana plants, several guns, books and
paperwork. Tuck has vowed to sue the sheriff's department over the incident.

Vadas said that while the District Attorney's Office takes the case
seriously, it decided not to prosecute Tuck because "we believe he was
misinformed to some extent" about the local interpretation of California's
medical marijuana law, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, commonly called
"215."

"It was appropriate for law enforcement to take the plants," he added.

Whether growers can produce medical marijuana for large numbers of patients
has been disputed in several Humboldt County cases and will probably become
an issue in civil lawsuits.

Tuck, who says he is terminally ill and was using his extensive education
to develop new strains of marijuana, has been an outspoken advocate of
large-scale growing of medical marijuana.

"Without people doing what were doing, 215 is a joke," he said. "It's like
standing in a hospital and handing someone with pneumonia a loaf of bread
and saying 'you have permission to go grow some penicillin.' "

Sheriff Dennis Lewis, Hanson and members of Hanson's unit were not
available for comment.