POT GROWER TELLS POLICE 33 PLANTS WERE MEDICINAL

Sacramento police Monday night seized at least 33 marijuana plants as they
arrested a Rio Linda man who claims he grows the pot for treatment of a
stomach condition.

Robert Ames, 36, said he suffers from a gastrointestinal disorder and has a
licensed doctor's recommendation affirming his need to smoke marijuana to
increase his appetite and help him digest food.

But police said they had reason to believe that he was growing the drugs
for more than medicinal purposes.

Ames said narcotics officers arrived at his mother's home Monday afternoon
and told him they had heard he was cultivating marijuana and wanted to
investigate. Ames demanded a search warrant.

Four hours later, the officers produced one and searched a guest house
behind the main home. They found growing plants and arrested Ames, who
lives in the guest home, on suspicion of cultivating marijuana.

"It's a very sophisticated growing operation," said Sacramento police
spokeswoman Michele Quattrin.

City police officers conducted the search and arrest even though Ames' home
is in county jurisdiction because the initial investigation of the case
began inside Sacramento city limits, Quattrin said.

The case is one of the first clashes of its kind in the county over
California's controversial Proposition 215, the medical marijuana
initiative passed by voters in 1996, said Ryan Landers, a local advocate
who has challenged law enforcement's handling of such cases.

State Attorney General Dan Lungren has restricted ailing pot users to a
30-day supply -- two marijuana plants -- which yields about an ounce of
cannabis, or enough pot for about 35 cigarettes.

Landers and others contend that the limit is unrealistic for medical
purposes. "That's basically one cigarette a day," he said.

Landers said five medical marijuana users in Sacramento County previously
have been targeted by police for cultivating pot, and three have "backed
down after the cops came in, without a search warrant, and scared them."

Last year, in the first case of its kind in the county, Richard Hearth of
Antelope pleaded no contest to a felony charge of cultivation of marijuana
after failing to convince a judge he was using the drug for medicinal
purposes. In that case, police found four large marijuana plants in
Hearth's yard and about three-quarters of a pound of pot in his home.

Meanwhile, the Sacramento City Council has been debating when and where it
is acceptable for medical marijuana users to smoke in public. A council
committee wants the practice banned within 100 feet of another person or
public building, and within 1,000 feet of a school, park or other open or
recreational space.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski