LANDLORD SAYS POT GROWERS MUST GO

Tenant Dispute Caught Up In Prop. 215 Haze

A landlord-tenant dispute is smoldering between a property owner who
fears trouble from the law and some renters who want a place to
cultivate marijuana legally.

Members of the Compassionate Gardens growing service rented a two-room
office in Kearny Mesa Sept. 1 as a place to maintain their business
and grow marijuana for personal use.

When they signed the month-to-month rental agreement, they told the
landlord they were a legally established business that would use the
space as an office and as a place to grow medicinal herbs.

Inside the building, a dozen or so marijuana plants thrive under
special lights, while the office is crowded with books, desks and
literature asserting the medical benefits of marijuana and recent news
accounts of the issue.

But when landowner Merle Strum discovered pot was being harvested on
his property, he cut off electricity and ordered his tenants out, said
Steve McWilliams of Compassionate Gardens.

"I don't blame the landlord," McWilliams said yesterday as police were
arriving to take a report. "Merle is an unfortunate victim. The fault
lies with the elected officials who have not set guidelines."

Strum denied shutting off the electricity, which was on yesterday
morning. But he did say he wanted the growers to move out.

"The space you rent is for office space only, and you cannot grow
marijuana there," he wrote in a letter dated Friday. "You are breaking
terms of the lease. . . . If you persist, I have no alternative but to
call the authorities."

Compassionate Gardens was forced from its Hillcrest offices this
summer when the building was sold, and the organization has had
trouble finding new quarters, McWilliams said.

He and his partners, who say marijuana relieves chronic pain they
suffer from various illnesses, called San Diego police yesterday to
report what they say is an illegal eviction.

But officers wanted no part of the dispute.

"There really is no police issue here," said Officer Mike Maschmeier.
"I'm no attorney, but if it's an eviction issue, that's a civil matter."

Maschmeier said he was not overly concerned that marijuana plants were
being cultivated in the office.

"If they have all the notes they need, as we stand right now, until
we're told further, there's nothing we're going to do," he said.

McWilliams has been arrested several times for growing marijuana under
Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative passed by California voters that
allows people to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's consent.

He remains on probation from his most recent arrest.

"They raid a place, they seize all the property, then hold the threat
of prosecution over your head for a year," said McWilliams, who said
he wants state officials to adopt a uniform standard for dispensing
legal marijuana.

In a potentially far-reaching decision, a federal appeals court ruled
last week that medical marijuana centers can legally distribute
cannabis if it can be shown that patients would suffer imminent harm
if denied the drug.

McWilliams said the ruling may help clear up the ambiguity in state
laws, which are often unevenly enforced and result in disparate sentences.

"It's unconscionable that sick and dying people should be treated this
way," he said.