California Legalizes Use of Marijuana for Medical Purposes

Aired October 19, 1997 8:09 p.m. ET

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: In California, it now is legal to use marijuana
for medical purposes under certain circumstances, but it remains illegal to
grow marijuana plants. The state attorney general is enforcing the law
aggressively. And that is upsetting some advocates of medical marijuana.
CNN's Rusty Dornin reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): More than 132,000 marijuana
plants went up in smoke in California this year, uprooted by law
enforcement. That's 40 percent more than last year, and the most seized
over the last decade, a record in the same year that a controversial law
took effect legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana, a measure approved
by voters. Some backers of the medicinal marijuana initiative say the size
of this years busts are nothing but a vendetta by the state's attorney
general.

DENNIS PERON, MEDICINAL MARIJUANA ADVOCATE: He says he got 40 percent of
the crop, but they don't even know what the crop is. He makes up those
figures to bolster his position. And essentially, he's slapping voters in
the face.

DORNIN: This latest bust was the biggest. More than 2,000 plants
camouflaged among the rows of a vineyard.

DEPUTY MIKE PADILLA, SAN JOAQUIN CO. SHERIFFS DEPT.: The street value has
been estimated at $4.5 million. This is right in the agricultural growth
area where it's full of vineyards and row crops.

DORNIN: Attorney General Dan Lungren says the steppedup efforts by camp,
the campaign against marijuana planting, and busts like these have nothing
to do with the new law voters approved.

DAN LUNDREN, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: The plants seized during this
operation were never intended for use for medicinal purposes. These plants
were part of a criminal enterprise destined for gang members and street
dealers to sell to anyone particularly children.

DORNIN: While the state attorney general calls the medicinal pot initiative
a dumb law, he now backs a proposal for a threeyear study of whether
marijuana has medicinal properties. Lungren says that won't stop him from
waging a war in the fields, seizing pot he claims is destined for the
streets.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

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