MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEFENSE MUZZLED

LOS ANGELES -- In a July 1997 raid, police officers and federal agents here
found more than 4,000 marijuana plants in a Bel-Air mansion known as the
castle, near the home of Ronald Reagan, whose administration created the
"zero tolerance" approach to illegal drugs.

With a trial scheduled to begin Nov. 16, the case has turned into a test of
judicial tolerance for a defense strategy based on marijuana's medical uses.

Defendants, Todd McCormick and Peter McWilliams advocate legalizing
marijuana for medical use and have used it to treat their own ailments:
McCormick for pain from cancer treatments that fused several of his
vertebrae, and McWilliams for nausea from drugs he takes to treat AIDS.

Saying the plants were for personal use and research on a book about
medical marijuana, they contend their actions were legal under Proposition
215, the ballot measure approved by California voters in 1996 allowing
patients to smoke marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

Federal prosecutors, however, sought and received an order from a federal
judge barring the defendants from telling the jury that side of the story.

In a ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge George King prohibited the
defendants from making any reference to Proposition 215, the purported
medical benefits of marijuana or even the federal government's own
experimental program, now closed, providing marijuana to patients.

The defendants say they are not being allowed to defend themselves. "I'm
devastated," McWilliams said in an interview on Friday. "I can't even
present my case to the jury. We just have to sit there and listen to the
evidence, and we've already admitted everything. Obviously, the federal
government is stonewalling any discussion of medical marijuana in any forum."

McWilliams, a best-selling self-help author, and McCormick, were among nine
people charged with conspiring to grow and sell marijuana. They face
minimum prison sentences of 10 years if convicted.