HE LOST MUCH FOR A CAUSE HE SUPPORTED

LAW: Medical Marijuana Figure Adjusts To Life After Prison Stint.

Those were heady days, setting up Orange County's first medical marijuana
co-op. Rushing around for legal advice. Business licenses. Strategy
meetings. Trailblazers, they considered themselves, crusading for a cause
they believed in their bones was right.

"Our country was born on revolution, and I don't think of myself as any
different from that guy who ... dumped tea in the Boston Harbor," said David
Lee Herrick, who was recently released from prison after serving more than
two years. He was convicted of selling pot; he says he was providing
medicine to patients in need.

"I never thought of myself as a criminal," he said. "I always thought of
myself as a political prisoner. Am I bitter? Yeah, I'm bitter. I pretty much
lost everything I ever had."

In a twist straight from a Hollywood movie, Herrick, a former San Bernardino
County sheriff's deputy, went to the slammer. He's believed to be
California's first medical marijuana activist convicted of selling pot in
the post-Proposition 215 era.

Herrick shared a maximum-security cell with an attempted murderer. He shared
a minimum-security dorm room with 200 men convicted of just about everything
else. He read good books and bad books. He raised vegetable for 11 cents an
hour.

The people on the outside who were supposed to take care of his stuff stole
it instead. The co-op is essentially defunct. The federal government still
considers marijuana a "schedule one" drug, meaning it has no medical use.

But the part that really hurt came when an appeals court reversed his
conviction in September. The prosecutor engaged in willful misconduct, the
court said. But the decision came too late to do him any good, and Herrick
remained in prison until Oct. 14 when, after 29 months behind bars, he was
paroled.

Since then, he's been living with friends in Mira Loma, speaking to
gatherings like the one at the Orange County Hemp Council's office Wednesday
night, and trying to figure out how to build a new life. He wants to write a
book. Speak. Get his message out.

Today is his 50th birthday.

"I lost 29 months of my life and there's no way to get them back," said
Herrick.

The District Attorney's Office could have tried Herrick again, but decided
not to last week.

Orange County is known for being one of the toughest in California when it
comes to medical marijuana cases. Then-Sheriff Brad Gates led the statewide
opposition to Prop. 215, the medical marijuana initiative that passed in
1996.

And the district attorney has not shied from prosecuting cases: Marvin
Chavez, was convicted of selling and transporting pot, and is serving a
six-year sentence in state prison; and last week, the district attorney
dropped charges against co-founder Jack Shachter, who is in Florida dying of
cancer.

Herrick was a sheriff's deputy for 15 years, until he suffered a back injury
on duty. He didn't want to get hooked on prescription drugs, so he started
using marijuana to ease the pain, he said. He owned a smoke shop in Hesperia
when he met Chavez, and got caught up in the dream of the co-op.

The co-op believed it was on firm legal footing when it accepted money from
patients in exchange for quarter-ounce baggies marked "RX". But the district
attorney said this is a drug sale under California law. The jurors wanted to
take Prop. 215 into account when deciding Herrick's fate, but the judge
wouldn't let them.

The law remains in limbo today.

"Fifty-six percent of California voters passed Prop. 215." Herrick said.
"Why is it that, three years later, it's still not law? Why?"