MEDICAL MARIJUANA USER FIGHTS FOR RETURN OF POT SEIZED BY COP

Kyle Kelly had just paid $45 for an eighth of an ounce of pot at a
Sacramento medical marijuana dispensary when a California Highway
Patrol officer pulled him over on a routine traffic stop.

The officer noticed Kelly had a copy of the West Coast Leaf -- "The
Cannabis Community Newspaper of Record" -- in the car and asked the
25-year-old Sacramento man if he had any weed on him.

Kelly admitted that he did. But he didn't have his doctor's
certificate of approval as well, so the CHP officer confiscated the
pot and wrote him a ticket for misdemeanor marijuana possession.

When Kelly showed up in court a couple months later with his medical
marijuana papers in hand, a Sacramento Superior Court judge dismissed
the case. Kelly, however, still wanted his dope back, and when the
CHP failed to return him his eighth, he went to court again -- this
time as a plaintiff.

On Tuesday, Kelly filed for an order of return to get his marijuana
returned to him. He is believed to be one of the first medical
marijuana users to take the legal route in the local Sacramento
courthouse to get his marijuana back.

"It's more of a principle," Kelly said, about his going through the
court hassle of getting a few buds returned to his possession --
after he's already gone back to the dispensary at least 10 times
since and bought some more. "It's an I-know-my-rights kind of deal.
You don't want to say like you're getting taken advantage of, but
sometimes that's just what it is. Sometimes, when it comes to law
enforcement, we get kind of scared."

Kelly said he uses medical marijuana to deal with post-traumatic
stress disorder and the pain in his foot that resulted from getting
shot Oct. 31, 2008, by members of the street gang known as the Monk Mobb.

A friend of Kelly's named Patrick Javan Razaghzadeh was killed in the
shooting that took place in the La Riviera-Folsom Boulevard area.
Seven suspects have since been arrested and charged with
Razaghzadeh's murder and the attempted murder of Kelly. An eighth
suspect also has been charged as an accessory.

Kelly said he had smoked pot even before the shooting but has since
gone the legal route as the best way to take care of his pain.

Chris Conrad, the editor of the El Cerrito-based newspaper that
attracted the CHP officer's attention, said it is becoming
increasingly popular for marijuana consumers to use the courts to get
back the product that they obtained legally under California's
compassionate use laws.

Conrad said that in general the medical marijuana users are winning
when they go through the courts to get their pot back.

"It's going on all over the place," Conrad said. "There's one guy who
got three pounds back after they took it away from him at the airport
in Sacramento. I think it's very important and it clearly establishes
that marijuana is legal for people who have a doctor's authorization.
It's not contraband and police should stop treating it like it is."

The West Coast Leaf editor said medical marijuana users have pushed
harder to get their confiscated goods returned to them as a result of
a December 2008 action by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that decision,
the panel refused to hear a California case where trial and appellate
courts had ordered the city of Garden Grove to return 8 grams of
marijuana to Felix Kha, who had his dope confiscated by police even
though he had a doctor's prescription.

CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said the officers who confiscated Kelly's
marijuana acted within the agency's policy.

"Our policy states that persons who are involved with marijuana and
who do not possess a valid state or local medical marijuana ID card
can be charged with a misdemeanor," Clader said.

She said the procedure for them to get it returned if it's legal "is
to file a motion with the court seeking an order of return."

Kelly said the CHP officers who stopped him Sept. 18 at 11th and J
streets seemed nice enough and told him his situation appeared
legitimate. He said they told him if he brought his certificate to
their Southside Park office, he'd probably be able to get his
eighth-ounce returned.

But when he showed up with the proper paperwork, as well as
information that showed his possession case had been dismissed by
Judge Allen H. Sumner on Nov. 19, he said he found out about the
order-of-return policy.

In the city of Sacramento, police spokeswoman Officer Laura Peck
said, the department has put the word out to patrol officers to lay
off the legal users.

"Typically, when we come across something, it's not going to be
confiscated," Peck said Thursday. "It's going to be left there and
photographed. It's a relatively new policy we're adopting, in
conjunction with the District Attorney's Office, on medical marijuana issues