PETALUMA PAIR FACING TRIAL IN POT-GROWING CASE

Key Prop. 215 Issues May Be Decided

A Petaluma couple who helped grow and distribute medical marijuana will
stand trial on charges of unauthorized cultivation of marijuana in a case
that could help determine how pot can be distributed.

What constitutes the relationship between the "caregiver," or marijuana
provider and patient, is a question that continues to be debated more than
three years after the passage of Proposition 215, the initiative approved
by California voters allowing the use of medical marijuana. The initiative
legalized the use of marijuana as medicine, but did not specify how people
are to obtain it.

"The lines are still being drawn. That's what the case is about," said
Santa Rosa attorney Chris Andrian who is representing Cheryl Sequeira, 37,
one of the people active in a cannabis club that distributes marijuana to
1,200 patients in the Bay Area.

Sequeira, her boyfriend, Ken Hayes, 32, and Michael Scott Foley, 34, were
arrested in May at their rented Petaluma area home where sheriff's deputies
seized 800 plants and about 20 pounds of dried marijuana, along with a
loaded .22 caliber rifle and $3,300 in cash.

Hayes, the executive director of CHAMP, or Cannabis Helping Alleviate
Medical Problems, has boxes of records to bolster his claim that he was the
primary caregiver supplying ill people with pot, as recommended by their
doctors.

Sonoma County District Attorney Mike Mullins contends that nothing in the
generally worded Prop. 215 allows people to grow large amounts of marijuana
and sell or distribute it to others. But Andrian said a 1997 state court of
appeal ruling, People vs. Peron, allowed a caregiver to supply to more than
one person.

The court ruling stated "a primary caregiver who consistently grows and
supplies physician-approved marijuana is serving a health need of the
patient and may seek reimbursement for such purposes."

Mullins said the problem is that Hayes, the lead defendant in the case, did
not fit the definition of primary caregiver as defined by the court ruling.
"A primary caregiver must consistently assume responsibility for the
housing, health, or safety of that person," Mullins said.

Mullins said counties have differing policies on marijuana co-ops and how
much medical marijuana each patient can possess. He believes the issue
needs to be resolved in the state legislature, but proposed laws to do so
have failed.

Proposition 215 was "so vague and ambiguous. It doesn't do what it was
supposed to do. It left everyone in a quandary," Mullins said.

But Andrian said "the vast majority of voters wanted this. Instead of
finding ways to prosecute people, they should find ways to make it work."

He said his client and her co-defendants were "acting out of good faith and
the belief what they were doing was legal." He noted that CHAMP was lauded
for its work last year by the mayor of San Francisco and San Francisco
Board of Supervisors.

A preliminary hearing was held over two days and concluded Monday with
Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Frank Passalacqua finding there was
probable cause to hold Sequeira and Foley for trial on charges of illicit
marijuana cultivation and possession for sale.

Foley's preliminary hearing was delayed until May because his attorney was
Andrian and William Panzer, the co-author of Prop. 215 who is representing
See Pot, Page B4Pot

Hayes, said they decided not to mount a defense at the preliminary hearing
stage and instead take it to a jury trial.

"The judge stated on more than one occasion he felt we had a strong case,"
Andrian said.

Last week, the preliminary hearing was watched by about 40 medical
marijuana patients and advocates who came up on a chartered bus from San
Francisco.

Defense attorneys said they are contemplating seeking a change of venue in
the case to San Francisco because many of the witnesses are poor and ill
with cancer and AIDS.

Andrian said, "I feel much more comfortable trying the case here" even
though he believes prosecutors will have a tough time in either county
convincing a jury to convict.

Mullins said he would oppose any change of venue.