POT USERS ARRESTED

Pair Says Law Is on Their Side

JOHNSON VALLEY - JoAnn Cates, who has 16 great-grandchildren, seems
an unlikely candidate to be handcuffed and hauled off to jail for
growing a marijuana crop in her backyard.

As she talks about her ordeal, Cates' wrinkled face breaks into
frequent half-smiles. Her fingers fiddle with a diamond cross around
her neck. Her frizzy white hair is neatly clipped with a barrette.
Her bangs brush the top of her prescription glasses.

Cates, 74, was settling down for an after-lunch nap with her
3-year-old grandson Aug. 3 when she heard her husband of 30 years
call her name.

Outside the two-bedroom mobile home they've lived in since 1985,
Richard McCabe had dropped the gardening hose. Four San Bernardino
County sheriff's vehicles were zeroing in on their home from dirt
roads flanking the property.

McCabe suspected a drug raid was at hand. He'd wondered when
authorities would show up at his door ever since he'd started growing
marijuana 10 years earlier.

"We usually don't have people this old doing this kind of stuff, but
the pot smokers of the '60s and '70s are starting to get to this
age," said Michael Abacherli, special prosecutor for the district
attorney's Marijuana Suppression Unit. "That's the only unusual thing
about this case."

Cates and McCabe disagree.

They say what's unusual is the county's refusal to issue medical-
marijuana cards to patients legally allowed to light up.

Cates uses marijuana for arthritis and insomnia.

McCabe medicates more often, but for diabetes, neck and back pain,
and for symptoms associated with his cancer remission.

Authorities said legally smoking marijuana is one thing.

Growing is another.

Deputies didn't come to the couple's home that day expecting to find
marijuana plants. They were looking for stolen property possibly left
there by the couple's adult son, who was arrested two days earlier in
connection with a construction site theft.

A half-dozen armed sheriff's deputies cut the padlock off the gate in
front of the property and searched the premises before handing over a
warrant to look for stolen goods, McCabe said.

Cates contends her son has never lived in the mobile home and that
deputies searched it because she and her husband are relatively
well-known activists for medical-marijuana rights.

Stolen articles were recovered at the house, authorities said.

But the big find was a plastic-covered greenhouse containing 120
marijuana plants in various stages of growth, authorities said.

Cates and McCabe, who said they were unsure how much marijuana they
were growing, were arrested and booked into the Joshua Tree Jail for
three hours until their daughter posted $1,000 bail for each of them.

"It's pretty scary when you've never been arrested before and you're
as old as I am," Cates said.

They've both been charged with cultivating marijuana, possession of
marijuana for sale and possession of a controlled substance.

Cates and McCabe, who live on Social Security checks, said they
didn't sell their homegrown marijuana. It was for personal use.

Some was distributed to McCabe's patients, he said, although he
declined to say how many people he grew for.

McCabe is a "caretaker," which means he is authorized to grow
marijuana for other legal users.

"The law is on our side," McCabe said. "They're the ones breaking the
law by coming in and arresting us."

Prosecutors acknowledge Cates and McCabe both have legitimate
doctor's recommendations that allow them to use marijuana.

The problem, Abacherli said, is that the couple far exceeded the
amount of marijuana allowed to those permitted to use it.

In California, medical-marijuana patients are allowed to grow 12
immature marijuana plants or six mature marijuana plants, or possess
eight dried ounces.

Having more than 100 is "outrageous," Abacherli said.

"It's so much more in excess of medical-marijuana plants that would
be allowed," he said. "And once you go over the legal amount, all of
it is contraband."

Cates and McCabe face up to three years in prison.

They were hoping their doctor's recommendations for marijuana use
would convince prosecutors to dismiss the charges, but Abacherli said
that won't happen.

They're scheduled to appear in court later this month.

Lanny Swerdlow, director of the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project,
is trying to drum up support and $10,000 to help pay for a lawyer for
the couple.

Cates and McCabe's case is one of several Swerdlow cites in
passionate diatribes about how the county is wronging
medical-marijuana patients by refusing to issue ID cards.

"The continued (flouting) of state law and waste of taxpayers' money
by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors has led to the
tragedy of the arrest of these two senior citizens," Swerdlow wrote
to the 700-plus people on the group's mailing list.

Medical-marijuana ID cards are state-mandated as part of Proposition
215, which California voters approved in 1996.

They are intended to help law enforcement differentiate between
legitimate medical users and recreational pot users.

San Bernardino and San Diego counties have appealed a court's ruling
that the cards do not violate federal law, which bans marijuana for any reason.

Cates and McCabe said it is important for the county to issue ID
cards so other medical marijuana patients won't be arrested like they were.

They continue to use marijuana to reduce various aches and pains.

Cates said they are very careful about not exposing their 13
grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren to the drug.

McCabe carefully set a silver case on a wooden table before
extracting a vaporizer, a device used to release the active
ingredients of marijuana rather than the smoke.

He pinched some pot out of a green container and dropped it in the
vaporizer's bowl, then leaned back in his chair as he waited for the
marijuana to heat up and release the vapors.

Once it was hot enough, he filled an oven bag with the vapors and
slowly inhaled several times.

"I feel better already," McCabe said as a red flush crept over his face.