POT SENTENCING SHOWS FEDERAL/STATE DIFFERENCES

COURTS:A woman says California's medical-marijuana law made her pot-growing
legal.

SACRAMENTO-The gulf that divides state and federal marijuana laws will take
center stage today in the sentencing of the first pot grower prosecuted by
the federal government despite her assertions that California's
medical-marijuana law made her operation legal.

U.S. District Chief Judge Lawrence K. Karlton, who will hand down the
sentence,has said that the rift between the state law and stricter federal
drug statutes - the latter make any marijuana possession illegal - could be
grounds for a more lenient sentence for the grower.

The woman, Roni L. Aurelio, pleaded guilty in December, the first ever
marijuana conviction won by the federal government against a California
resident who said she was growing marijuana for medical use.

"The possibility that (Aurelio) relied on state law in determining the
legality of her conduct" will be taken into account during sentencing,
Karlton said in a Feb. 13 order.

Legal analysts said the fact the judge is considering the impact of the
state statute could set a precedent for future federal cases in which
defendants say they possess the plant for medical use.

But even before Karlton's presentencing statement, the U.S. Attorney's
Office had struck an unusual plea bargain with Aurelio that seems to
indicate prosecutors' recognition that unresolved differences between the
state and federal laws has created confusion.

Aurelio pleaded guilty in December to growing about 340 marijuana plants in
a greenhouse attached to her home. Her boyfriend, Richard Maughs, and three
others still face charges stemming from the discovery of more than 1,200
pot plants nearby.

Aurelio says in court documents and interviews that she did not know
anything about her boyfriend's marijuana garden.

Agents found posted signs at all the grow sites declaring that the
marijuana was meant for medical use. Court documents show that the
defendants freely showed the agents where the pot was being cultivated.

About 56 percent of California voters approved Proposition 215 in November
1996. It allows the cultivation and possession of marijuana by seriously
ill people and their caregivers.

Under federal law, however, all forms of marijuana possession remain a
crime. In practice, the federal government only prosecutes cases where
large numbers of plants are involved.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy L. Simpson, who is prosecuting Aurelio and
the four other defendants, offered the woman a reduced sentence in December
if she succeeded in spreading the word that marijuana possession violates
federal law.

Law-enforcement officials in Siskiyou County who investigated the case,
however, strongly criticized the plea bargain. They believe Aurelio and the
other defendants were using Proposition 215 as a ploy to cover a large
scale black-market marijuana growing operation.