LAKE COUNTY POT ARRESTS

Editor While not involving pepper spray like the nownotorious arrest of
environmentalists by Humboldt County deputies, the arrest of two female
students by deputies in Lake County for cultivating medical marijuana also
raises valid issues of police harassment.

The two women had documentation from the Cannabis Buyers' Club in Ukiah
(UCBC). The plot, just across the Mendocino County line, contained all of
51 plants, which were confiscated, thus denying intended medical benefit to
local patients.

One of the women is a premedical student whose future is threatened by
having a felony arrest on her record. This is just the type of heavyhanded
police activity the voters of California were attempting to prevent with
the passage of Proposition 215 in November of last year.

At this juncture, the only way to prevent these fascist police tactics is
to expose them to the light of day and ask the deputies and the Lake County
DA to explain just what vital public interest they are protecting here.

We're listening; and we're watching.

THOMAS J. O'CONNELL, MD
San Mateo