PATIENT WHO SMOKES POT FOR PAIN CONTINUES TOKING AFTER ACQUITTAL

(03-01) 03:36 PST REDDING, Calif. (AP) -- More than two months after
he was acquitted of criminal charges of possession, cultivation and
possession of marijuana for sale, Richard Levin continues to take a
long drag off a joint every few hours.

He does not hide his smoking habit. At his house, a sign bearing a red
cross and marijuana leaf hangs in the kitchen window.

Dr. Tod Mikuriya of Berkeley, the physician who wrote Levin's
marijuana prescription, is also not hiding. In the past four years,
Mikuriya claims, he has written 3,000 recommendations for marijuana
under the 1996 Compassionate Use Act approved by California voters to
allow medical marijuana under state law.

But Mikuriya lives in fear of federal prosecution. Possession of
marijuana is still strictly illegal under federal law.

``It's kind of like being put on the enemy's hit list, and targeting
yourself for the roving band of persecutors,'' he told the Record
Searchlight newspaper in Redding.

Levin, 49, of Redding, says pot relaxes back muscles damaged in a
serious fall that required four surgeries, and also eases the pain of
his Hepatitis C, a virus that attacks the liver.

But the drug had negative legal repercussions for Levin, a former
carpenter, after authorities found 41 seedlings growing in his backyard.

His case was similar to that of Redding mother and son Lydia and Jim
Hall, who were acquitted this week of possessing and growing marijuana
yet were convicted of conspiracy to cultivate marijuana.

Levin says marijuana saved him from a life of popping pills every few
hours, including those that treated the nausea, constipation and other
side effects of pain killers.

``Back then, we had a twin bed in the living room, and my back and my
body hurt so much that all I could basically do was lay there. I
wasn't really part of the family,'' he said.

Now he works at household chores and caring for his son, stopping
every few hours to get a jar of green bud from a padlocked cupboard in
his garage and roll a joint.