CHICO POT GROWER HEADS BACK TO PRISON

Bryan James Epis, the first person associated with a California
cannabis buyers' club to be tried in federal court for growing pot,
was ordered back to prison Monday by a Sacramento judge to serve the
balance of a 10-year term.

Epis, 42, had been free for nearly six years on an order issued by
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after he had served more than
two years of the term for growing and conspiring to grow marijuana.

The case, now nearly 13 years old, remains a rallying point for
medical marijuana proponents nationwide, who view it as the ultimate
injustice to come from the chasm between the state's allowance for
medicinal use and a federal policy of zero tolerance.

In July 2002, a Sacramento jury found Epis planned to grow at least
1,000 plants and that he grew at least 100 plants in the spring of
1997 at his Chico residence. The fact the house is within 1,000 feet
of Chico Senior High School is one reason Epis is not eligible for a
term less than the 10-year mandatory minimum attached to the
1,000-plant conviction.

Among the things that made the trial memorable were the contrasting
styles of defense lawyer J. Tony Serra, with his trademark passion
and florid prose, and prosecutor Samuel Wong, aloof and mostly
dispassionate. Wong's cool demeanor cracks, however, when the Epis
prosecution is referred to as a medical marijuana case.

His voice rising, Wong said during Monday's hearing, "As the court
knows, this is not a medical marijuana case. That term doesn't ever
apply to cases of this scope. Mr. Bryan Epis grew and distributed
large amounts of marijuana even before the law changed in California."

Epis testified that he started using marijuana in his teens to manage
chronic pain from a near-fatal car accident. He testified that he
started the growing operation after California voters in 1996
approved Proposition 215, the so-called Compassionate Use Act
allowing medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation.

He testified that he and four others with doctors' recommendations
were growing pot in his basement for their personal use. Any
leftovers were given to a Chico cannabis buyers' club, he said.

Wong argued that Epis' "goal was to go statewide and use Proposition
215 as a shield to manufacture and traffic marijuana" on a large
scale. Epis was motivated by profit, not altruism, Wong said.

The 9th Circuit decided in 2004 that Epis should not be in prison
while the U.S. Supreme Court was considering another case from
California involving medical marijuana. A split high court ruled in
that case in 2005 that medical use under state law is trumped by the
federal Controlled Substances Act.

The landmark case was brought by Angel McClary Raich, then of
Oakland, and Diane Monson of Butte County, and challenged the power
of Congress to prohibit personal use of non-commercial pot under the
guise of regulating interstate commerce.

"My heart is breaking that Bryan is back in prison," Raich, who now
lives in Orinda, said in a telephone interview. "He's such a good
guy, and he was trying to do the honorable thing by helping sick people."

Epis was re-sentenced to 10 years in 2007, but remained free on
$500,000 bail pending the exhaustion of issues raised in his appeal.
The 9th Circuit decided those issues in the government's favor on
Aug. 11, the Supreme Court declined to review that ruling, and the
circuit then issued its mandate to the court in Sacramento on Jan. 26.

Defense attorney John Balazs asked at Monday's hearing that Epis be
given a surrender date so they could explore further legal means of
attacking the conviction and sentence. But U.S. District Judge Frank
C. Damrell Jr. rejected the notion.

"It's over, Mr. Epis," the judge told him, and he was escorted to a
holding cell by deputy U.S. marshals while his girlfriend and her
daughter quietly wept.