CANNABIS CLUB CLOSES ITS DOORS IN SANTA CRUZ

The Santa Cruz Cannabis Buyers' Club shut down last week after its supplier
refused to extend further credit and an associate took off with the club's
patient list, the club's founder said Thursday.

Fred Seike, founder of the club, said he will not reopen the downtown
medical-marijuana facility.

"I'm 74, I'm crippled and I'm getting very, very tired," said Seike, who
has been the mainstay of the club and one of the town's leading proponents
of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.

The club, located at Maple and Center streets, closed when its marijuana
supplier, thinking he would not be paid a $7,000 debt the club owed him,
refused to extend further credit, Seike said.

Seike, who in recent months had turned over day-to-day operations of the
club to others, blamed the organizations demise on one of his former
associates. He said that person told the supplier the $7,000 debt the club
owed would not be paid. Seike would identify neither the former buyers'
club associate nor the dealer.

"We'd be in that place before, three or four times, and we'd always been
able to pay him off. But this time, an in-house person apparantly
convinced him that we were not going to be able to pay him."

That individual, he said, took the club's patient list and indicated he
planned open his own medicinal marijuana club in the Santa Cruz area.
Seike noted, however, that so far he has not heard of any such operation
opening in town.

He said that the 200 or so patients who purchased medical marijuana from
the Cannabis Buyers' Club "will have to scrounge around looking for their
local pot dealer" if they plan to continue using the substance.

"If another buyers' club opens, it's not going to be with my assistance,"
he said.