MEDICAL POT ADVOCATE GETS PRISON

WESTMINSTER, Calif. (AP) - The founder of an Orange County medical
marijuana co-op was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for selling
marijuana to undercover police and mailing the drug to a cancer patient.

Asking for lenience, Marvin Chavez, 42, described himself as a casualty of
the war on drugs, using marijuana to ease the pain of an old back injury
and supplying it without profit to people for therapeutic use.

Citing two previous firearms violations and a conviction for selling
cocaine in the late 1980s, prosecutor Carl Armbrust called Chavez "a dope
dealer, pure and simple.''

Chavez faced a maximum sentence of eight years for three felony marijuana
convictions: two of sale and one of transport. He was convicted in November.

Defense attorney J. David Nick said he would appeal.

Nick said Chavez gave marijuana to cancer sufferers, AIDS patients and
others in need, accepting only voluntary donations in return.

The state's Proposition 215, passed in 1996, legalized possession,
cultivation and use of cannabis for medical purposes, but not its sale.