PERON'S POT PLANTS UPROOTED

Replanting planned instead of harvest in Lake County

For a second time, federal drug agents have busted a Lake County pot
plantation run by San Francisco medical marijuana crusader Dennis Peron.

About 20 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration swooped in and
seized 151 marijuana plants at 7:30 a.m. Friday, just before a weekend open
house planned to show off the Lake County Cannabis Farm in Lower Lake,
according to Peron and a DEA spokeswoman.

Peron and nine others were detained during the two-hour seizure, but were
not arrested, according to Evelyn James of the DEA's San Francisco office.
A prosecutor will decide whether any charges are warranted, she said.

Peron has been arrested four times since he launched his campaign to pass
Proposition 215, which allows medical patients to grow and use marijuana,
with a doctor's recommendation, to ease the suffering caused by AIDS,
cancer and other illnesses.

He said Friday he had hoped to be arrested again because "we want our day
in court."

Federal authorities say U.S. drug laws still prohibit having or growing
marijuana, and supersede state laws like Prop. 215. They have gone
aggressively after Peron and other purveyors of medical marijuana, getting
a court order that eventually shut down Peron's Cannabis Healing Center in
San Francisco.

The city of Oakland this week took the unusual step of making the Oakland
Cannabis Buyers Club a city agency to try to keep it operating and out of
federal jeopardy.

Since his own pot buyers' club was shut, Peron has been concentrating on
his 20-acre plot in Lake County, a two-hour drive northeast of San
Francisco. He said it was a cooperative of 100 or more AIDS, cancer and
other patients who took turns growing the pot for their own use, as allowed
under Prop. 215.

The DEA busted it for the first time in May, confiscating 250 plants and
several pounds of processed pot.

The public was invited to the farm this weekend to show that despite the
federal onslaught, "Prop. 215 did do something, and that sick and dying
people can cultivate medicine free of prosecution, from the state and
county in any case," Peron said Friday.

With the bust, he said the federal government is "trying to discourage
people into thinking Prop. 215 didn't change anything and they can shove
their heavy hand down the people's throat."

Lake County Sheriff Rodney Mitchell, who sent a detective along with the
federal agents Friday, said a bust just before the weekend celebration just
meant more publicity for the farm.

"I think that the end result was, they accomplished what they expected and
wanted," Mitchell said. "Otherwise, why would they fax me a copy (of the
press release announcing the open house)? Why would they fax the DEA one?
Why would they put it on their Web site, which the DEA monitors every day?"

Peron said the celebration would go ahead, with people from all over
Northern California bringing pot plants to replace those ripped out. "We
are going to have 200 patients up here," he said. "Instead of a harvest
party, it's going to be a planting party."

1998 San Francisco Examiner

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski