PAIR FACING DRUG CHARGES CLAIM MEDICINAL NEED

After three surgeries, Camarillo resident Lisa Schwarz suffers chronic back
pain that she says prescription drugs cannot ease.

Based on a doctor's recommendation, the 43-year-old businesswoman turned to
cannabis and began cultivating marijuana plants in her home earlier this
year. She and her husband, Craig, 40, say the plants were intended strictly
for medicinal purposes.

But Ventura County law enforcement officials don't see it that way.

In July, the couple were arrested on suspicion of drug sales, after
narcotics agents raided their Dewayne Avenue house and confiscated 68 pot
plants. They each face two felony charges of possessing and cultivating
marijuana for sale.

On Monday, prosecutors added charges accusing the pair of possessing opium
poppies in their backyard. The Schwarzes have not been arraigned on the new
charges but had pleaded not guilty to the other counts. A preliminary
hearing is set for Dec. 1.

Attorneys for the couple say the charges fly in the face of Proposition
215, the voter-approved 1996 state law that allows patients to grow and use
marijuana for personal use with a doctor's recommendation.

They contend that Lisa Schwarz had a legal right to possess marijuana,
after her neurologist suggested it would alleviate her back pain. They say
her husband had a right to help her grow it, because he was her caregiver.

"In the old days, it was marijuana equals arrest," said J. David Nick, a
San Francisco attorney representing Lisa Schwarz. "That's not the situation
any more."

But Ventura County Sheriff's Department officials contend that the couple
had too many plants for one woman's personal use and intended to sell
marijuana.

"We are not arguing over the legal use of marijuana, we just don't believe
the amount we picked up was within that," said Eric Nishimoto, a department
spokesman. "People who grow marijuana for medicinal purposes grow two or
three plants, they don't grow 68. That's a lot of pot."

Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Harmon declined to discuss the specifics of the
Schwarz case, but said the amount of marijuana seized is the critical issue.

"I think that is why we are all here," he said.

The Sheriff's Department arrested the Schwarzes on July 8 after receiving a
tip from an informant that the couple were cultivating marijuana in their
home. After a brief surveillance, Nishimoto said, authorities raided the
house and found the plants and several growing lamps.

Ventura attorney Michael Mehas, who is representing Craig Schwarz
separately, said the couple had posted three copies of the doctor's written
recommendation in their home. He said the officers disregarded her medical
condition.

Nick said the confiscated plants were in various stages of development and
not all producing usable amounts of marijuana. He said the couple had
staggered the plants' growth so Lisa Schwarz's supply would be constant.

The attorney said his client and her husband, who have been married five
years and own a small Camarillo printing business, are not suburban drug
dealers but people who tried to follow the letter of the 3-year-old law.

Their case has drawn interest from medicinal-marijuana advocates from
around the region. Several supporters came to Ventura County Superior Court
with the couple Monday wearing matching green T-shirts emblazoned with the
text of the so-called Compassionate Use Act of 1996.

"We could keep quiet," said Long Beach resident William Britt with the
Assn. of Patient Advocates, "but by speaking out maybe we can make a
difference."

The case is the first in Ventura County to test the boundaries of
medicinal-marijuana use since the passage of Proposition 215.

A Simi Valley man was arrested earlier this year after police confiscated
13 pot plants. The district attorney's office decided not to file charges
against Dean Jones, 62, who had a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana
to alleviate symptoms of diabetes, high blood pressure and migraine headaches.

In 1998, the district attorney filed a civil suit against the owners of a
Thousand Oaks medicinal-marijuana outlet that served about 60 patients
suffering from AIDS, cancer and other illnesses.

A Superior Court judge ruled that the Rainbow Country cannabis club was
operating illegally, and authorities shut it down. Co-owner Andrea Nagy
appealed, but the appellate court upheld the decision.

Attorneys say the closure of Rainbow Country narrowed the options available
to seriously ill patients, including Lisa Schwarz.

In early 1998, Craig Schwarz wrote a letter to Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury
complaining that the closure eliminated his wife's supply of marijuana and
put her in intense pain.

"What are we to do now?" he wrote. "Prop. 215 states we have a right to
obtain, our rights are being violated!"

Bradbury responded in a Feb. 5, 1998, letter: "I am sworn to uphold the
law. Closing the business was my duty.

If a higher court subsequently rules in Ms. Nagy's favor or the Legislature
acts to provide for a safe and reliable medicinal-marijuana delivery
system, I will be pleased for you and your wife."

Such a system may not be far off.

In July, a state committee of police officers, medicinal-marijuana
advocates and doctors recommended that California establish a voluntary
registry of patients to protect them from arrests. The registry would make
enforcement uniform, and patients would be issued photo identification
cards that law enforcement agencies would recognize. The Department of
Health Services would determine what constitutes a reasonable amount of
marijuana.

In the meantime, Lisa Schwarz says she is trying to find alternative ways
to deal with her medical condition.

Her doctor's note states that she has chronic pain and spasms in her limbs.
She has begun taking Valium and other prescription drugs, but she complains
that they make her sleepy and unable to work.

She said the criminal case has been emotionally devastating to the couple
and her adult children.

"The whole family has just been torn apart," she said.