MEDICAL POT USERS PLEAD FOR HELP

Supervisors face Prop. 215 dilemma Jun. 16, 1999

The agony of California's battle over marijuana as medicine spilled
into the Sonoma County supervisors' chambers Tuesday as several users,
including some terribly ill people from San Francisco, begged the
board to stop the raids on medicinal pot gardens.

AIDS patient Wayne Phillips seemed barely able to stand as he
addressed supervisors, saying that a police raid at a large growing
operation in southern Sonoma County last month has caused a critical
scarcity of marijuana for patients in San Francisco.

"My first defense against the pain is cannabis,'' Phillips said weakly
as he implored supervisors to stop funding raids like the one that
occurred in May at the home of Kenneth Hayes near Petaluma.

Hayes, the director of a medicinal cannabis club in San Francisco,
faces charges of commercial cultivation of 800 marijuana plants.

"When you persecute someone like Ken Hayes, you persecute me,''
Phillips said.

Supervisor Tim Smith responded that he's sensitive to people who use
marijuana as medicine, a practice legalized by voter-approved
Proposition 215 in 1996.

But, Smith said, the county is in a dilemma because the vaguely worded
law does not say how the pot is to be grown and distributed, and the
state has yet to come up with practical guidelines. Currently under
Proposition 215, seriously ill patients with doctor approval may
legally use marijuana -- still a federally outlawed drug -- but they
cannot lawfully buy it or grow it for distribution to others.

In Sonoma County, District Attorney Mike Mullins says patients whose
doctors approve marijuana may legally grow pot plants for their own
use but may not grow it for sale or distribution. Under a protocol
that Mullins helped develop, patients desiring to grow and use
marijuana may ask for the stamp of approval from a panel of local physicians.

Deciding how to regulate marijuana in the Proposition 215 era and to
keep it away from people with no bonafide medical need has become a
quandary for authorities throughout the state.

"I'm proud to say I supported it,'' Smith told the crowd at Tuesday's
board meeting, "though implementing it has been difficult.

"We share the same frustration as you,'' he said.

Some speakers Tuesday complained that police and sheriff's deputies in
Sonoma County still are confiscating marijuana from small, private
gardens grown by people who use pot with their doctors' permission.

Supervisor Mike Reilly urged them to contact him or Sheriff Jim
Piccinini with names, dates, locations and other specific details of
raids of home gardens grown by patients.

"That's the only way we can follow up on what you're telling us,''
Reilly said.

Most of the speakers Tuesday decried the county drug task force's May
14 raid, during which about 800 marijuana plants, 10 pounds of
processed marijuana and about a pound of hashish were seized from a
house on rural King Road, near Petaluma.

The officers who confiscated the drugs also arrested the 32-year-old
Hayes, executive director of a San Francisco medical marijuana club
called Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medicinal Problems, or CHAMP.

Hayes, who is free on bail, told supervisors the money the county
spends on pot raids would be better spent on drug treatment and
education. He said outside the board room he began growing marijuana
in Sonoma County about a year ago because for many AIDS patients and
other ill people it's essential medicine.

"There's a need, a collective need,'' Hayes said.

His girlfriend, Cheryl Hoya Sequeira, and friend and roommate Michael
Scott Foley also face charges of cultivating and possessing marijuana
for sale. Foley said Tuesday the marijuana was given to patients in
exchange for donations.

Though patients and advocates implored supervisors that it is only
humane to allow the cultivation of marijuana for distribution at
cannabis clubs, Mullins said Proposition 215 does not permit such
clubs. Nor, said Mullins, does it legalize the growing of large crops
of marijuana to supply the clubs.

When San Francisco resident Larry Edmond addressed the supervisors, he
said the pot he received from Hayes' garden gave him back his life as
he struggles with symptoms of HIV disease and post-traumatic stress.
Edmond urged the board to let Sonoma County grow marijuana for people
everywhere who need it for pain, appetite loss, nausea and other symptoms.

"This is a lovely place,'' Edmonds said. "You can supply people around
the world with marijuana.''

Mullins, who did not attend Tuesday's board meeting, said, "To put it
bluntly, I don't want Sonoma County to become the marijuana garden for
San Francisco, or anywhere else.''