PROTESTERS ASK TO KEEP MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES OPEN

Dispensary owner Chantel Jackson joins dozens of people Monday, Sept.
14, 2009, to protest the Spokane Police Department's recommendation to
close of all the city's medical marijuana dispensaries last week.

Some have HIV. Others suffer from cancer or chronic pain from car
accidents and job injuries. One man burned most of his body in a gas
explosion as a toddler and wasn't expected to live.

All have a prescription to use marijuana in Washington, and all
gathered Monday outside the Spokane County Courthouse to protest the
legal battle brewing between law enforcement and the medical marijuana
dispensaries that police recommended be shut down last week.

"For the ones that it helps, we need to find a way to get them their
medicine," said lawyer John Clark, who does free legal work for
marijuana dispensaries. "I have some acquaintances who are going
through chemotherapy. For some people, it's just a miracle drug."

The warning to the dispensaries came at the heels of the first police
raid in the state of Washington at a medical marijuana dispensary,
Change on Northwest Boulevard. About 11 dispensaries still operate in
the Seattle area.

Change owners Scott Shupe and Christopher Stevens face charges of
felony delivery of a controlled substance after a four-month police
investigation that centered on them providing marijuana to more than
one authorized patient.

The law allows a person to provide medical marijuana to one authorized
patient "at any one time."

Prosecutors and police say that means dispensaries, which serve
hundreds of people, are illegal. Voters approved medical marijuana in
1998, and the state Legislature set possession limits last year at a
pound and a half per person or 15 plants. But how users who don't grow
can obtain marijuana legally hasn't been addressed.

About 100 people gathered outside Spokane Regional Health District and
the courthouse Monday to ask officials to change that.

"Where are we supposed to tell our patients to go?" said Rhonda
Duncan, coowner of the dispensary Club Compassion. Club Compassion,
which specialized in marijuana-based food products, closed after
Thursday's raid at Change.

"All of my clients want to comply with the law and run it like any
other pharmacy," said Clark, who works with Club Compassion. "We're
just hoping that reasonable guidelines can be hammered out so the
responsible dispensaries can stay within those guidelines."

Police investigated Shupe and Stevens knowing it could trigger a
lengthy court battle, which police said is needed to clarify a law
even pot advocates say is confusing.

Their investigation was fed by Shupe and Stevens' blatancy in selling
marijuana to more than 1,000 medical marijuana patients at Change
since April, according to a search warrant.

Drug detectives started watching them after seeing a TV news article
in May about the for-profit business, according to the warrant.

The men spent about a day in Spokane County Jail before a judge
released Stevens on his own recognizance and Shupe, who's facing
felony marijuana charges in Oregon, posted $10,000 bond.