State wants to keep $60,000

it acquired in raid on pot club

By David Holbrook

TIMES OAKLAND BUREAU

OAKLAND State officials will try to keep more than $60,000 in cash they
seized during last year's controversial raid of San Francisco's medical
marijuana club.

In a petition filed last week in Alameda County Superior Court, state
prosecutors claim the government has the authority to confiscate the
cash because it comes from the proceeds of illegal marijuana sales at the
club.

State narcotics agents seized $63,137 in cash from the Market Street
establishment during an Aug. 4, 1996 raid that led to criminal charges
against six of the club's operators. State officials claim the club broke
from its policy of providing pot to ailing adults and was selling it to
healthy customers and juveniles.

Officials from the state Attorney General's Office failed to return
phone calls Monday. An attorney for club founder Dennis Peron said that
Prop. 215, the medical marijuana initiative, passed a month after
criminal charges were filed and should prohibit the confiscation of the
cash.

"Prop. 215) should apply retroactively," said attorney J. David Nick of
San Francisco. "Therefore, these proceeds were not from an illegal
operation and should be returned to buy more marijuana for patients.
Nick noted the criminal charges accuse the defendants only of selling pot
to people who didn't qualify for medical marijuana, but that the petition
to seize the cash targets all of the club's sales as illegal.

State officials should be forced to specify which portion of the
proceeds came strictly from the sales named in the criminal charges, Nick
said "They didn't bother to pursue charges for selling to the sick, so
how can they take money that would be used to buy marijuana for the
sick?" he said.

In a telephone interview Monday afternoon, club spokeswoman Lynne Barnes
said $63,000 would have provided the club with enough pot to supply its
12,000 customers for a week "It's not a huge loss for us, but it's that
much more medicine that could have gone to our patients," said Barnes.

State prosecutors were allowed to bring indictments against the club in
Alameda County because one of their suppliers was an Oakland resident. A
Superior Court judge is scheduled to rule later this month on a defense
motion to move the trial to San Francisco.