GEORGE GASCON FLIPFLOPS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

With less than six months as district attorney on his resume - and
zero cases personally tried in court - George Gascon has a thin
record on which to stand for re-election in November. But the former
chief of police is doing what he can to rally a base, even among the
medical marijuana community.

"My office is not interested in prosecuting legal cultivation sites
connected with a registered dispensary," Gascon told a July 5 meeting
of Americans for Safe Access, a patients' advocacy group.

Meanwhile, his office is pressing felony charges against 63-year old
Wayne Kiloh, who has legally cultivated medical cannabis for Green
Cross for nearly seven years, according to its CEO, Kevin Reed.
Kiloh's Richmond District home was raided by police in July 2010, and
despite Reed's good standing as a registered dispensary operator and
his insistence that Kiloh was growing for his collective, prosecutors
declined to drop charges during a July 7 hearing and offered Kiloh a
felony plea.

Erica Derryck, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney, assures SF
Weekly this could all be cleared up easily. "Someone from Green Cross
communicated to police that [Kiloh] was not an employee," she says,
noting that a permit from the Department of Public Health, on site at
Kiloh's home, was expired. If Green Cross presents any information to
the contrary, she says, the charges may be dropped, "but nothing has
been presented to us to demonstrate any relationship."

The Green Cross disputes this. "At no time did a conversation between
Green Cross and the police take place," spokeswoman Caren Woodson
says. Paperwork at the Hall of Justice demonstrating Kiloh's
legitimacy - including tax forms and a letter identifying Kiloh as a
grower for the collective - was seized by police during the raid, and
extra copies were furnished to prosecutors as late as this July 7,
Woodson says. "All of it is right in their hands," she says.

Kiloh's attorney, Jeremy Blank, is working to settle the case with
prosecutors, who will take their cues from Gascon for a full four
years if he wins in November. But what cues will he send?