THE RAID ON MENDOHEALING

I met David Moore in the spring of 2000 at a UC San Francisco conference on
cannabis therapeutics sponsored by G.W. Pharmaceuticals (the British
company that is developing strains with differing cannabinoid ratios to
achieve different medical effects). Moore, who was then in his early 40s,
said he had a personal interest in medical marijuana and wanted to advance
the cause.

He had loved ones with AIDS and schizophrenia, and he was a medical user
himself.

I gathered that he had a background in business and that he had done time
(marijuana-related, small-time). He played the bass. He seemed affable,
calm and serious.

I told him a few things off the top. 1) That California growers, too, could
develop strains with different cananbinoid ratios, standardized for use by
an MD; all G.W. had on us, really, was a lab to analyze the contents of the
strains being produced. 2) That Tod Mikuriya, MD, was trying to promote
vaporization and was recommending a high-end model from Germany called the
Volcano. 3) That Dennis Peron said the real measure of Prop 215 being
implemented would be the price coming down.

Next time I heard from David Moore he had already been to Tutlingen,
Germany, to meet with the inventor of the Volcano, Markus Storz, and to
offer his services as a U.S. importer and representative. Storz told Moore
that he already had a business partner and a plan to expand Volcano
distribution in the U.S., but the two hit it off and Storz invited Moore on
a camping trip in the beautiful green countryside around Tutlingen (a town
famous for making precision medical equipment). Moore brought back tapes of
some formal interviews he had conducted with Storz, and photographs of the
inventor at his workbench.

Moore had made the down payment on some land in Fort Bragg, on the
Mendocino County coast, and launched "Kind Food Farms" to produce medicinal
grade cannabis by organic methods.

In 2001 he opened a dispensary in Fort Bragg in which the Medical Marijuana
Patients Union was involved.

The project ended when the property was sold. Moore then got a conditional
use permit and opened an outlet in Fort Bragg, which was soon closed
because it didn't meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In late 2003, feeling confident in his productive capacity, he opened a
dispensary in San Francisco selling high-grade cannabis "farm direct to
collective members" for $30 an eighth-ounce -when other dispensaries were
charging $50-$60. He sold Volcanos at cost ($420, which was more than $100
below the prevailing retail price). As a member of the board of the Medical
Cannabis Association he advocated a formal collective comprised of
patients, distributors and growers.

Moore's low prices -and a policy of giving a few free grams to collective
members in need-resulted in long lines (with a high percentage of blacks
and Hispanics) forming outside the door of the MendoHealing storefront on
Lafayette, a small residential street that runs off Howard between 11th and
12th. Some neighborhood residents were righteously upset about people
coming out of the club and loitering in front of their houses, smoking,
being rude, offering cannabis for sale, taking up parking spots,
double-parking, etc. MendoHealing's manager canceled the giveaway policy
and upped the price to $40/eighth (the point to which other dispensaries
had come down), but it was too late to mollify the Lafayette St. NIMBYs.
Moore began looking for another location.

Before he could find one, a lawyer hired by the neighbors got a court order
to close MendoHealing as a nuisance (which the city wouldn't do because the
police found MendoHealing had complied with their
requirements). MendoHealing began operating as a delivery service and
Moore hired a San Francisco attorney, Terry Goggin, a former state
legislator, to fight for his right to relocate.

But as of November 3, Moore needed Goggin to defend him against looming
criminal charges for cultivation.

David Moore's Fort Bragg property was raided at noon last Thursday -the
peak of the harvest-by a task force consisting mainly of FBPD officers and
sheriff's deputies.

Glenda Anderson's report in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat noted that the
trim crew consisted mainly of Mexicans who had just finished harvesting
grapes. "Finding 65 people trimming and packaging pot under one roof
surprised even Rusty Noe, the veteran leader of the County of Mendocino
Marijuana Eradication Team," Anderson wrote.

Apparently the sheer amount of cannabis being grown convinced law
enforcement that it could not have been destined for distribution through
medical channels. Anderson wrote in the PD: "While the people processing
marijuana in the Mitchell Creek Road barn claimed they were working for a
medical cannabis club, [Sheriff's Capt. Kevin] Broin said the operation was
clearly commercial, which makes it illegal.

"Law enforcement seized 1,707 plants and 1,000 pounds of processed, trimmed
marijuana from the barn, he said. The seizure brings the total number of
plants confiscated in Mendocino County this year to 144,021."

According to a source on the scene, the task force wreaked unnecessary
destruction, breaking down doors instead of asking that they be
opened. "We had several letters posted in the kitchen from officials
confirming our medical status. Letters from [Sheriff Tony] Craver and the
planning department and the tax collector and business licenses... They
were all posted on a wall. [Craver was not working the day the raid on
MendoHealing went down.] Although they said at the gate that they wanted to
check our paperwork, they seemed surprised to see that we really were
medical...

"They were told that Craver and the district attorney had been right here
at this farm. They were asked,'Why are you guys here?' They said, 'Well,
without getting too much into the case, we have evidence that this is going
somewhere else than medicine.' By this time I could see men in the field
chopping things down... Patients' records were in a file cabinet in the
office and living room area of the main house.

They just took the whole filing cabinet."

The crew was handcuffed for about half an hour -"detained but not
arrested"- then cut loose and ordered to leave the premises until 9
p.m. Those who returned found the warrant and an itemized list of what had
been seized on the kitchen table.

Our source says, "Anybody that had more than $100 cash on them they took it
and they didn't give anybody a receipt for it. Since everybody was paid in
cash, most of the trim crew had more than $100 on them... I feel like we
were robbed.

Somebody broke and entered and robbed us. It was the exact same thing."

Two days after the raid on MendoHealing, a New York Times piece about the
history of American marketing noted that the president of a leading grocery
chain (A&P in 1931) attributed his company's success to its policy "of
immediately passing on reductions in wholesale commodity prices to the
consumer... A&P had one dominant mission: to sell quality food at low
prices." Of course I thought of David Moore, who has been pre-judged by
law enforcement and punished for distributing cannabis according to
rational marketing principles and respect for the letter and spirit of the law.

Second item Note from Oregon

Your correspondent was in Salem Monday as the Oregon Supreme Court heard
oral arguments in Washburn v. Columbia Forest Products. Washburn is a
Klamath Falls mill worker who was medicating legally with marijuana under
state law. He had never showed signs of impairment at work but the company
fired him for violating its zero-tolerance-for-illegal-metabolites policy.
Details TK in a future column... Washburn was at the hearing with his
beautiful wife, observing the colloquy with quiet dignity. (His lawyer,
Phil Lebenbaum, had told him not to discuss the case.) Washburn has a high
brow, a drooping mustache, John Lennon eyeglasses and powerful hands. "A
working-class hero is something to be."

Birthday Present

We wanted to buy a globe for an eight year old boy. The one on sale at
Target had oceans that were parchment-paper tan (for an antique effect,
although the nations' names and boundaries were up-to-date) We eventually
found a globe with blue oceans at an educational toy store.

It was made by Replogle Globes of Broadview, Illinois, and came with a card
entitling the owner to a 50% discount through Replogle's "Updateable Globe
Program." The father of the eight-year-old was pleased to read the
assertion on the card: "From time to time the world does change." See,
there's hope!