PROSECUTORS WANT MARIJUANA CO-OP PATIENT RECORDS

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- A medical marijuana co-op will resist Orange
County prosecutors' efforts to obtain health records of hundreds of people
who use the drug for pain, a defense attorney said.

"It's a fishing expedition," said Long Beach attorney Robert L. Kennedy, one
of two lawyers representing the Orange County Cannabis Co-op. Its founder,
Marvin Chavez, and a volunteer worker, David Herrick, have been charged with
felony marijuana sales.

Kennedy said he would ask a judge to quash subpoena requests for members'
medical records at a July 10 hearing in Santa Ana. The co-op has about 200
members.

Proposition 215, a 1996 initiative, changed state law to allow patients with
cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and other illnesses to possess and grow marijuana for
medical use with a doctor's recommendation. Federal authorities have
resisted its implementation.

The Orange County case is one of several legal battles that have resulted.

Deputy District Attorney Carl Armbrust, head of Orange County's Narcotics
Enforcement team, said he doubted whether a physician was involved with the
cannabis co-op. He called Chavez a "street peddler.

But said also said he believes that Proposition 215 is flawed.

"The law is poorly written," Armbrust said Tuesday. "But it's still the
law."

Co-op members, many of them elderly, come from all walks of life, Kennedy
said. Many turned away from regular painkillers because of the side effects,
he said.

Chavez says he smokes marijuana to ease the pain of a degenerative spinal
condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, which flared after a 1991
automobile accident.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"