PARADISE LOST

After 15 Years of Devotion to the Medical Marijuana Movement in Santa
Cruz, WAMM Founders Michael and Valerie Corral Face the Loss of Their
Land and the End of a Dream.

On Friday, Oct. 10, one of the final days of the marijuana harvest in
her garden, Valerie Leveroni Corral feels the first real chill of
fall on the deck of the home she built in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Stepping around her geriatric dog Ebo and over a deaf cat lying
supine in a pool of morning sunlight, she pulls a coat on over her
tiny frame and gets into her old Volvo station wagon to drive the
gravel road to the garden.

A few members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the
collective Corral founded with her husband, Michael, are making the
drive up through the cool redwood forest that envelops the house.
Michael will be by shortly as well, despite the fact that he and
Valerie separated two years ago. He is still a close friend and
remains WAMM's marijuana cultivation expert.

On foot, the garden is about a 200-yard hike from the house on a dirt
path through the redwoods. Inside a barrier of wire and fencing to
protect against rooting pigs, deer and rabbits, a dozen marijuana
plants grow in great bushy formations more than 6 feet high,
sometimes drooping under the weight of the sticky buds. The plants'
green and dusky purple leaves fill the air with a heady scent mixed
with the muskiness of the desired product. In front of the Corrals,
who've been growing marijuana since the '70s, the impulse is to act
unimpressed, but the marijuana seems almost supernatural or mystical.
It's more of a presence than a plant.

It's not obvious by looking at Valerie that she's sick, but she
smokes pot about once a day to help control her epilepsy symptoms. At
56 years old, she has lines in her face from the wind and sun but
moves with the impatience of a grade schooler. She stands just a bit
over 5 feet under a long cascade of dyed red hair that contrasts
sharply against the supersaturated greenery around her. She steps up
to one of her plants and inhales deeply. "Oh, that smells so good,"
she says. "My favorite."

The WAMM volunteers arrive, a young couple, an older woman with
breast cancer, another woman with AIDS and two dogs. They snap on
pairs of black rubber gloves and begin popping the five-fingered
leaves off the stem. But instead of bagging them like usual to be put
through a long process of drying, filtering and blending to create a
THC-spiked flour for baked goods, Michael tells them to let the
leaves fall to the ground. "It has to do with the sale. We don't have
time," he says. "If the sale of the property goes through, we won't be here."

Michael is in the middle of drafting a counteroffer for the land on
which the garden and the house sit. After advertising on Craigslist
and by word of mouth, they're in talks with a man who grew up nearby,
on Last Chance Road, and whose ideas mesh well with the Corrals' hope
that the wilderness surrounding their rustic home will remain largely
untouched. "We hope that it will be monitored and loved and honored,"
says Valerie. "The big hope is that we wouldn't have to leave it. But
that doesn't seem possible." If the counteroffer is accepted, they'll
be off the deed by January.

Their land is a 106-acre parcel off Swanton Road north of Davenport
that Valerie likes to say is shaped like the state of California. It
scales a steep incline, the top of which offers a spectacular view of
the ocean, the dramatic plunge of the tree-covered hillside and, on
clear days, a view of Ano Nuevo Island. It is generally accepted as
truth that Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash owned the land before
the Corrals, and on Google Maps, it's possible to see an aerial view
of the marijuana.

Valerie loves the property fiercely, like it's a person. "It's been
such a great gift to so many people, it's changed our lives
incredibly," she says. "We want whoever comes here to serve the land
in at least a fraction of the way it served so many humans, providing
medicine and food and making their lives less painful."

But as of July this past summer, the land that the Corrals called
their home for over 20 years is slipping away. Because of a perfect
storm of factors--plummeting donations to WAMM, the DEA raid of the
property in 2002, death and taxes--Valerie can no longer afford to
stay in her home, and WAMM is losing its iconic garden. "I'm
exhausted," says Valerie. "I'm losing my land, the place I thought
that I'd be buried."

Though the situation is complex, Ben Rice, an attorney who has
represented the Corrals for the last 15 years, blames the situation
solely on the federal government. Without the DEA's continual assault
on California law, medical marijuana organizations would not be
raided, would not spend their savings on legal defense and would not
lose precious donations due to spooked members. "WAMM is sort of the
soul of the medical marijuana community," says Rice. "This never
would have happened if the feds had taken the time to look at what
WAMM was about and who Mike and Val were.

"For them to lose this property--they've given everything they have
to WAMM, and this is what they get for it. It's so, so sad."

Back to Nature

The land first came to the Corrals long before WAMM and the trouble
with the feds. As a young couple in the late '70s and early '80s,
they lived off the grid near the summit on 35 acres they cultivated
themselves. "We were so buff in those days," says Valerie. "I used to
say we lived in a shoebox and bathed in a teacup."

When they befriended Alexander Peter Willoughby Leith, a wealthy
Englishman who'd moved to the area looking to create a Tibetan
Buddhist retreat, he was impressed with the Corrals' talent for land
management. "He wanted to live rurally, but he had no knowledge of
how to do that," says Michael. "He asked us to sell our property and
go in with him on this piece of property we're at now."

That meant that after an up-front sum the rest of the Corrals' 20
percent of the land would be paid for in labor--building roads,
turning expanses of 7-foot-high weeds into garden and generally
making it livable. In exchange they could live rent-free, enjoying
the fresh food they grew themselves, spectacular views, the privacy
and the experience of living intimately with Mother Nature.

"We view it as sanctuary," says Michael.

"Do we ever," says Valerie quietly.

"The idea was that Val and I would just be able to live here until we
died," says Michael.

Though the Buddhists never ended up having a strong presence on the
property, WAMM carved its identity out of it as the early '90s
brought medical marijuana to the forefront of the Corrals' lives.

Originally, the couple grew five marijuana plants in the small garden
in front of their house for Valerie's epilepsy. In 1992, the plants
were spotted in a helicopter flyover, and the ramshackle house built
from reclaimed structures that fell during the 1989 earthquake was
raided by sheriff's deputies.

It was not the first time they'd been questioned by law enforcement,
but it was the first time their explanation--that the plants were
medicinal--fell on deaf ears. Reagan's zero tolerance policy had
trickled down and local cops, even in laissez-faire Santa Cruz, were
no longer willing to turn a blind eye.

The fact that Valerie's trial occurred just before Santa Cruz
residents were to vote on Measure A, the Marijuana for Medical Use
Initiative, thrust the Corrals into the media spotlight, with Valerie
as medical marijuana poster child. After the measure, which
encourages local officials to do everything in their power to help
make marijuana available to patients, passed by 77 percent of voters,
District Attorney Art Danner decided to drop the charges against
Corral. The publicity brought ailing patients out of the woodwork;
they read about the Corrals in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and found them
in the phone book.

The first was Tony Degnan, who at only 35 years old was dying of
colon cancer. "Tony was so ill. His parents had no idea who to call;
they called one of his friends and the friend freaked out," says
Valerie. "He was like, 'Oh, my god, Tony's parents are calling me about pot!'"

At first, they divvied up the two-year supply the Corrals usually
grew for Valerie free of charge. But as the calls flooded in, they
eventually decided to also donate their time and expertise and began
growing additional plants.

"Every year after '92 or '93, the garden grew out of necessity," says
Michael. They began growing the marijuana in the larger garden among
their tomatoes, squash and corn, but it didn't take long for the pot
to take precedent, from five plants to 16, and then to 40, and up and up.

The WAMM collective was officially born as an incorporated nonprofit
in 1996, the same year that Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use
Act, passed. The cannabis indica and sativa, strains from Afghanistan
and Malawi respectively, were carefully dried, processed and
distributed for free to WAMM members who smoked the herb for a
variety of ailments--chemo sickness, glaucoma, chronic pain, AIDS. As
the number of members grew to 250 people, so did the garden, until it
was a lush forest of 200 plants standing shoulder to shoulder,
enjoying the moist ocean air that blows up the mountain.

Baggie Buddies

Fridays from 10:30am to 2:30pm at WAMM headquarters on Almar Street
are joint-rolling days. Ten middle-aged members have gathered around
a long table in the back room under the "Wall of WAMM," a collection
of photos of all the 191 members who have died. The men and women are
patiently assembling near-uniform joints with cigarette rollers,
ZigZag rolling papers and a little spit. They chop the marijuana up
with scissors and chatter loudly. They are both patients and
caregivers, some of whom have their wheelchairs pulled up to the table.

"This is therapy," says Diana Poppay, talking loudly over the others,
who then mm-hmm in agreement. "We forget about our little this and
little that."

"Have you guys had smoke yet?" asks Valerie, coming in to the room.
"Have you taken a break?"

The voices in the room rise as one roller stops and lights up a joint
at the head of the table. The rolling club has the air of a revival
church, praising WAMM and praising marijuana. The members sprinkle
three-quarters of a gram into the rolling paper, twist it around
inside the roller and pop out joints the size of cigarettes, which
are packaged in bags of seven--one for each day of the week. The
rollers usually produce about 250 joints in one Friday session.

"I have some good news, everybody," says Valerie, struggling to get
everyone's attention. "We found out we have a little more medicine
than we thought. We thought we were going to run out."

After carefully counting out all the incoming donations of marijuana,
it turns out that at the close of the growing season, the WAMM
members will have enough pot to make it through the winter. WAMM,
like the Corrals, hovers in a near-constant state of uncertainty,
with only enough financing to predict on a month-to-month basis how
much longer it can maintain its operations, so the news is a huge
relief. With the pared-down garden, it was essential that the members
grow for themselves and donate back to the collective for WAMM to
function as it has for 12 years.

"These are all donations," says Valerie, pulling zip bags of bud out
of a paper sack. "This member gave back more than half of what she grew."

Earlier in the growing season, Valerie decided to run a little social
experiment. "I asked WAMM members, 'Hey, guys, you want to come up
and help me with the garden?' They said, 'Well, is there pot?' And I
said no. You know, just to see," she says. "And they said, 'Nahhh.'
And I went ... 'OK.'"

There is real disappointment in her eyes when Valerie tells this
story. If the land is lost, she will no longer be providing the bulk
of the pot. She says she fibbed to the members in order to encourage
them to grow for themselves and the collective, but also, it seems,
out of insecurity over the true generous spirit of the WAMM members.
After 15 years dedicatedly growing for others--some estimates say she
and Michael have given away about $20 million worth of
marijuana--Valerie has reason to be looking for some reassurance.
It's not enough to distribute marijuana to the ailing poor; Valerie
desperately wants WAMM to be a community. But without the garden,
without joint-rolling Fridays and fall harvest, Valerie is trying to
figure out what her place is and how much time she can continue to
dedicate to WAMM. "I'm tired and I take care of my friends when
they're dying and I'm ill," she says. "Facing the loss of this land,
I need to know, What should I do in the future? What kind of
investment should I make?"

The Big Bust

In the life of the WAMM garden there are two eras: before and after
the DEA raid.

It's not hard to imagine the way things looked to DEA agents six
years ago as they drove quietly up the road to the Corrals' place in
the dark--the winding lane through the trees makes the place seem
clandestine and the people who would choose to live there guilty by
association. So when Valerie and Michael were awakened early on Sept.
5, 2002, by 30 agents in full gear who'd come to arrest them and
ravage the pot garden's crop, it was not a shock, but it did change
WAMM and the garden for good. The agents chopped down 167 plants that
morning, stripping the garden to a skeleton of arbors and deer netting.

What happened next became a part of Santa Cruz lore. The city banded
together with the Corrals and WAMM in a show of support for the club,
Prop. 215 and the local ordinances that permit the use and growth of
medical marijuana. On Sept. 17, 2002, the mayor, the City Council,
the county Board of Supervisors and former Santa Cruz mayors gathered
at City Hall with WAMM to publicly distribute medical marijuana in an
act that would come to define Santa Cruz quirk. "Making medical
marijuana available is an act of common sense and compassion. ... I'm
standing with the Corrals," wrote Mayor Christopher Krohn in an Op-Ed
in The New York Times.

"That's the tenor of this community," says Valerie with pride. "The
government needs to cross out Santa Cruz on their list."

In 2003, Valerie pursued a lawsuit naming former Attorney General
John Ashcroft and John B. Brown III, the former administrator of the
DEA, as defendants, and was joined by six WAMM members, WAMM itself
and both the city and county of Santa Cruz as plaintiffs. Although no
charges against the Corrals were ever filed, the lawsuit could have
major implications for the future of medical marijuana,

"We think this was an attempt to improperly hijack our state's right
to make laws like this," says attorney Rice, who is representing the
county. "There are so many good people in the community and
supporters in the medical community and in our local
government--what's happening to WAMM is a terrible, sad situation,
but it's not going to mean that medical marijuana is not going to be
as viable here as before."

While impending court decisions could buoy the medical marijuana
cause, in Valerie's case, she is in essence fighting to grow in a
garden that in a matter of months may not be hers anymore. She will
continue to fight, but that fight will change when the Corral name is
taken off the deed.

Will Power

Michael Corral has already moved off the land. He left it and his
30-year marriage to Valerie two years ago, though they have not
divorced. Michael, an athletic man who shaves his head bald, his
structured good looks punctuated by the two dark slashes of his
eyebrows, moved in with roommates in a house outside of the Santa
Cruz Gardens in the Aptos hills. It's where he does much of his
prepping as an expert witness for the defense in marijuana cases.
Though the house has a garden and a bevy of potted plants, it's
definitely city living compared to the land.

Michael is a pithy man who watches what he says very carefully, so
he'll only admit that the departure from the land was "difficult."
But the differences between him and Valerie make it so that his
exodus will be much different from hers. Michael has been the
pragmatist, Valerie the dreamer when it comes to dealing with the
impending sale. It seems a typical position for Michael.

"The last year my father was alive, my mother and I took care of him,
and he looked good. But I kept telling my mother, 'Mom, he can go at
any time.' It kept her from going to that space where, 'Oh,
everything is fine now.' When it really isn't," he explains. "And
that's what I did with the land. I knew that we weren't going to be
able to keep it." Valerie, on the other hand, has started buying
lottery tickets for the first time in her life.

For Michael, the beginning of the end came when Peter Leith, whom the
Corrals considered a partner, died in 2001. Zoning laws had proven
prohibitive to his plans to build a Buddhist sanctuary, and the
investors had become interested in a different piece of property in
New York state. Nevertheless, the agreement stood between Leith and
the Corrals that they would inherit an additional 20 percent of the
106-acre parcel upon his death, and be able to continue to stay on
the property.

But as Leith was dying in his native England, his attorneys saw that
to save the estate money they would have to dramatically trim the
amount of things being left in the will--including the promise made
to the Corrals. "It was a very creative estate plan at Mike and
Valerie's expense," says Jane Becker, a tax attorney the Corrals
retained when the IRS audited them for unclaimed income while living
and working for Leith. "There was very little paper trail. They went on trust."

Within a short time after the death, Michael and Valerie discovered
they'd been left a fraction of the joint interest, and that the heirs
and Buddhist guru Sogyal Rinpoche's organization wanted to sell. The
Corrals took out a loan that has sunk them close to $1 million in
debt, and bought out the other owners in 2004. It was theirs, but
this was not a happy acquisition for Michael. "We were just buying
time," he says. "The amount of money we are making isn't enough for
us to be able to pay off or even come close to paying off this loan."

Without the land and their deal with Leith, the life Michael had
envisioned for himself had utterly changed, seemingly overnight.

"We had set up our lives so that we were all set. We didn't need to
make a lot of money," says Michael. "So we both dropped out of the
job markets and all of that has flown by us, so neither one of us are
qualified for new jobs out there." The arrangement had essentially
permitted them the time and energy to start WAMM; now that time off
began to look like a liability.

Michael predicted they could hold on to the land for two years,
making payments as best they could from the modest $2,500 monthly
stipend they get from WAMM, but they've been able to stretch it out
to 4 1/2 years. The IRS audit sucked another $100,000 out of their
savings, and though the Corrals can still conceivably continue to
make payments for another year and a half, Michael decided to put the
land up for sale this past summer when he realized they were going to
have to borrow more on their line of credit and start selling
retirement assets. "We have no savings left. We're basically living
month to month," he says.

In late October, Michael finally heard about his counteroffer. The
buyer had decided to pass on the property, and the Corrals are back
to square one. Michael decided to list the property with a real
estate agent and Valerie decided to start renting Peter Leith's empty
house. So while there's no longer an impending move-out date for
Valerie, the future remains uncertain.

Leap of Faith

On Oct. 28, at Viking Hall, WAMM is holding its annual Halloween
party and "day of the dead" celebration. Besides eating, drinking and
dispensing each member's weekly allotment of marijuana, Valerie has
filled her Volvo with good-sized, smooth rocks for the members to
paint. There are 191 stones, one for each of the WAMM members who has
died, and Valerie has a typed list for members to pick from. The
mood, one of the members says, is much more solemn than most
Halloween parties. The task is heavy, as is the timing of it--the
stones are to be placed at the small graveyard Valerie created on the
land, and there's no saying how much longer WAMM members will have
access to it.

Michael calls the cemetery "boot hill" and Valerie calls it "the
jumping-off point." Under the boughs of a 300-year-old oak tree,
there's a collection of memorials and trinkets to 26 people, most of
them WAMM members who have died and asked that their ashes be brought
up to the land. There are some mason jars, half of a surf board,
blanched from sun exposure, candles and prayer tiles, strewn somewhat
haphazardly in the yellow grass since marauding pigs tore through it
looking for mushrooms and roots.

In addition to both Valerie and Michael's fathers, the cemetery has
become the final stop for the ashes of some important names. A
portion of Dr. Timothy Leary's ashes are there, as are his ex-wife
Rosemary Leary's, who lived and died in Aptos after coming out of
hiding. Valerie says she purposely placed author Nina Graboi's ashes
in between them, "to keep the peace." Peter Leith is buried with a
small Buddhist shrine. Harold Allen, the second person to call the
Corrals for help back in the '90s, is here. Michael Chelosky, who's
named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is there, as is Lucy Garcia, a
local artist whose 17-year-old daughter Shayna has become Valerie's
adopted daughter. This is where Valerie had hoped to be buried. "They
are my welcome guests here," says Valerie. "Maybe I'll drop my bones
up at the oak tree with my friends. Who can say?"

As Valerie, dressed in a bee costume, flits around the room making
sure everyone has what they need, someone is passing around a poster
of a toddler picking at a wedgie, and all the members are signing it.
The poster is a surprise for Valerie. "You know, because she's very
picky-picky," says Jackie Russell, who's dressed as a marijuana
fairy."We did it to make her feel better. The land has been a real
upset," says her husband, Jared Russell. "It can feel like the whole
world is crumbling."

If that world is truly crumbling, Valerie is not ready to fully
accept it. It's not denial, exactly, but she has not really made
plans about where she will go next. She still maintains hope that a
rescuer, some millionaire, will drop out of the sky, pay the debts
and keep WAMM running for years to come. She hopes this investor, or
maybe the lottery, will allow her to stay on the land, continue to
grow and, indeed, drop her bones at the jumping-off point. But she
has begun to do small things: give things away, pack her hat
collection and her grandma's crocheting that she keeps in the same
room where the marijuana hangs from the rafters to dry.

In the meantime, she says she tries to remain in the present, enjoy
her view, eat the grapes and the butternut squash she planted, smoke
the pot she grew and feed the feral cats who wander in and out of her
doors. "Will I be sad to leave it? Utterly. But we leave everything
in this life," she says. "I sit with people and discuss with them and
listen to them speak about losing everything, including their lives,
and realize the magnitude of that is great.

"I would have to say this is a practice."