MEDICINAL MARIJUANA USER FACES DRUG CHARGES

Controversy: Can Prop. 215 serve as defense for sales?

GARDEN GROVE - Marvin Chavez inhales deeply on a freshly rolled joint and
follows that with a few small puffs.

The 43-year-old Garden Grove man, who suffers from a genetic spinal
condition, says the marijuana brings relief that modern medicine fails to
provide. It halts the nausea created by pharmaceuticals he takes.

It's a drug his doctor has recommended. It's also a drug that California
voters approved for medicinal purposes under the provisions of Prop. 215,
known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.

Chavez - an avid advocate of medicinal marijuana -- is facing eight felony
counts of marijuana sales and conspiracy to sell because prosecutors say he
has no legal standing under Prop. 215 to provide the drugs to others.

His trial begins Aug. 3, but his attorneys will be in court today fighting
an effort by the Orange County District Attorney's office to ban any
reference to Prop. 215 as a part of his defense. His lawyers also will be
opposing the prosecutor's effort to open up the medical records of the 200
members of the cannabis club.

Chavez's legal headache stems, in part, from the impasse between the Clinton
Administration and state lawmakers over the use of medicinal marijuana.

The Clinton Administration has firmly opposed its use for the seriously ill
- -- those with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, chronic pain and migraines.

Those differences between federal and state laws have created a void in any
kind of cannabis delivery system, administration critics contend.

Public health officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties said they're not
budging on setting up a medicinal marijuana distribution system until the
impasse is resolved.

"We will be extremely cautious in taking any step," said Ron LaPorte, Orange
County's deputy director of public health.

Added Dr. Donald Thomas, Los Angeles County director of clinical and medical
affairs: "The county is not going to get in the middle of that argument. We
get a lot of federal and state funds."

Chavez worked for the passage of Prop. 215 in Orange County. After its
passage, he co-founded the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group,
designed to be a clearing house for the seriously ill. The organization has
about 200 members -- people who have presented a doctor's recommendation for
marijuana use, he says.

Chavez was arrested in April after allegedly selling marijuana to an
undercover officer posing as a care-giver for a terminally ill uncle.

Prosecutors - as they did successfully in a prior case -- are pushing to ban
any reference to Prop. 215 as a defense.

In that case, the trial of cannabis club volunteer David Herrick, jurors
were kept in the dark about his medical condition. The judge ruled that
Prop. 215 didn't apply to sales of cannabis and that a cannabis club cannot
take on the care-giver status, which allows a person to obtain the marijuana
for sick patients.

Herrick was convicted on two of four counts of sale charges. And he was
sentenced last week to four years in prison, but Orange County Deputy Public
Defender Sharon Petrosino said she plans to file an appeal.

Attorneys Robert Kennedy of Long Beach and Jon Alexander of Orange County,
who are representing Chavez on a pro bono basis, emphasized that Prop. 215
is the central issue of the case.

They said a ban on Prop. 215 will deny Chavez his due process right to a
fair trial -- cutting off, among other things, his ability to assert a
defense of entrapment.

Kennedy said the undercover officers showed Chavez a doctor's recommendation
before Chavez provided them with the medicinal marijuana. That action, he
added, should make Prop. 215 key to the defense.

"Why did they need a prescription if (Prop. 215) is irrelevant?" he states
in a motion opposing the district attorney's effort to ban Prop. 215 from
the case.

Deputy District Attorney Carl Armburst, head of the Narcotics Enforcement
Team, said he also is seeking to open the medical records to the cannabis
club because he has serious doubts that a physician is involved in the
organization's operations.

Armburst said that the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 allows patients and
care-givers to grow their own marijuana plants, adding he's never prosecuted
a case against anyone for growing their own medicinal plants.

But Chavez and his attorneys note that many members of the Patient-Doctor-
Nurse Support Group are unable to grow their own -- adding that the system
can be somewhat complicated, if not impossible, for the neophyte.

Armburst doesn't buy that and he dismisses Chavez as a "street peddler."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett