MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVIST SPEAKS OF LEGAL BATTLE

James Stacy on Federal Probation for Running Vista
Dispensary

Two years ago, James Stacy operated a martial arts studio in
Vista.

Then he opened a medical marijuana dispensary in the same
building.

Within 10 weeks, he landed in federal jail.

Stacy fought federal criminal charges, lost, and now, with a felony
drug conviction, is without a full-time job or significant income.

But along the way, he said, he found a new calling:
activism.

Seated in the living room of his Vista home Wednesday for his first
lengthy interview since he was sentenced in January, Stacy spoke of
life after his guilty plea to federal drug charges.

He is serving a two-year term of federal probation for his admission
to growing marijuana, which he used for his dispensary.

He fought the federal case as long as he could, insisting his shop was
legal under state law and protected from federal prosecution by the
Obama administration.

"I firmly thought the whole time that I was going to win," said Stacy,
47.

During the year and a half that Stacy fought the charges, his
supporters filled at least half the seats in a federal courtroom at
each of his proceedings.

Among them was Eugene Davidovich, the director of the San Diego
chapter of Americans for Safe Access, a national group that works to
ensure safe and legal access to medical marijuana.

He called Stacy "my personal hero."

"James deserves all the credit that the can get," Davidovich said. "He
is a champion of this fight in San Diego. Hundreds of people look up
to him because James stood up to the federal government as long as he
did."

Stacy now fights for the rights of patients to have access to
marijuana prescribed as medicine for ailments, including cancer.

"I feel an obligation to help people so that no one else has to go
through what I went through," Stacy said.

One of 14 shops raided

Stacy's now-defunct medical marijuana store on South Santa Fe Avenue
was one of 14 San Diego County shops raided by local and federal
authorities on Sept. 9, 2009.

Stacy opened the shop just 10 weeks before the raid, with a stock of
$300 worth of medical marijuana.

Before that time, Stacy was a medical marijuana user who had to drive
to Los Angeles to get his medicine, which he said he used for various
bone, joint and muscle problems from years of teaching martial arts.

"I (opened the shop) to try to help people," Stacy said. "I thought I
would follow the rules and do a good job."

He said he feared theft far more than the police because he felt
comfortable that he was following all state laws, and therefore was
exempt from federal prosecution.

When the shop was raided, authorities turned up eight dozen marijuana
plants and a semiautomatic gun ---- a weapon, Stacy argued in court,
that he used solely for self-defense training for the martial arts
classes he taught in a different part of the building.

Although authorities arrested 32 people across the county that day,
only two were immediately charged ---- Stacy and Joseph Nunes, who ran
a dispensary in San Diego.

The cases of both men landed in federal court. County prosecutors
eventually brought charges against a third shop owner.

Nunes pleaded guilty at an early stage of his case, but Stacy fought
his charges until his case nearly reached trial.

No other charges were filed from the raids, and there have been no
countywide sweeps since.

Probation, no jail

Legal in California since 1996, the use of marijuana as medicine has
long been a contentious issue in San Diego County. Local governments,
including those in North County, have fought state laws that approve
and regulate the use of the drug for medicinal reasons, as well as the
dispensaries that provide it.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law in most instances.

But, through his attorney, Stacy argued that prosecuting him in
federal court ran counter to U.S. policy.

They pointed to statements from Obama administration officials
suggesting that federal prosecutors refrain from going after medical
marijuana operations that are following state laws.

U.S. District Court Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz rejected that
argument.

He also barred Stacy from presenting the jury with philosophical
arguments, including whether marijuana should be legal, whether it has
legitimate medicinal value and whether providing it to patients was
humanitarian.

In October, Stacy gave up the court fight and pleaded guilty to a
single charge.

Prosecutors dropped the other eight charges.

The martial arts instructor had been looking at up to 20 years in
federal prison if convicted of manufacturing or cultivating marijuana.

Shown a good plea deal ---- probation ---- Stacy threw in the
towel.

He was sentenced to two years of probation.

'We are going to be remembered'

Stacy has struggled to find a job, saying that potential employers
show him the door when he reveals the felony drug conviction.

The building that housed the dispensary also housed Stacy's martial
arts studio, but he lost it last summer after he lost customers ---- a
casualty of the economy, he said.

He now has a $50-a-week gig teaching martial arts classes at a Vista
gym.

His wife is keeping the couple financially afloat.

He speaks of a sense of betrayal by President Barack Obama, who he
believes did not carry through with statements that his administration
would not go after medical marijuana, and medical marijuana laws he
said are "hypocrisy."

"BP destroyed the Gulf (of Mexico) and none of them went to jail,"
Stacy said.

Stacy said he has not had marijuana in any form since his arrest; as a
condition of his bail, and then of his probation, he was barred from
doing so.

Even though he had a doctor's recommendation allowing him to use
medical marijuana, he let it lapse.

Now, he said, "I suffer."

He takes nothing because be believes most painkillers are bad for
him.

He spends his days looking for work, putting together his planned
nonprofit, dubbed Hemp for Jobs, and fighting for the rights of
medical marijuana patients to have safe access to their medicine.

He also speaks at meetings of local government bodies to argue against
bans on medical marijuana dispensaries.

"He really has been instrumental in this fight," Davidovich said of
Stacy.

"We are going to be remembered," Stacy said, "as the ones who changed
the law; who changed the world."