AGENTS: POT CLUBS FRONTS FOR DRUG CRIME

Probe Allegedly Uncovers Large-Scale Operation

Three San Francisco medicinal marijuana clubs raided by federal
agents were being used as fronts for a major drug trafficking
operation, authorities alleged Thursday as more details emerged about
the two-year federal probe that led to this week's raids.

Federal drug enforcement agents Wednesday seized more than 9,000
marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $5 million from
three cannabis clubs located in San Francisco's Ingleside and Sunset
neighborhoods, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said during a press
conference in San Francisco.

Fifteen people were arrested, including two South Bay men, Minho
Thomas Cho, 25, of Santa Clara, and Faisal Mansoor Aly Gowani, 32, of
San Jose. Cho and Gowani were among those charged with conspiracy to
cultivate, possess and distribute marijuana over a four-year period.

Arrest warrants also have been issued for five others. All 20 were
indicted last week by a federal grand jury on various charges,
including money-laundering and international bulk-cash smuggling.

The federal sweep came just two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that users of medicinal marijuana are subject to federal
prosecution regardless of whether states allow the use of marijuana
on a doctor's recommendation, as California has since voters approved
the idea in 1996. The timing of the San Francisco raids and arrests
fueled the belief among medicinal marijuana advocates that cannabis
clubs are under attack by the federal government.

"I think the Supreme Court decision emboldened them to come in here
against the will of the California people," said San Francisco
resident Brent Saupe, who joined a protest led by Americans for Safe
Access, a medicinal marijuana advocacy group, outside the city's
federal building.

But federal authorities said the Supreme Court's decision had nothing
to do with their investigation. Their probe, they insisted, was about
dismantling a large-scale operation that allegedly was using cannabis
clubs as a cover as it grew and distributed thousands of pounds of
marijuana throughout the Bay Area.

The sweep involved the IRS, the Secret Service, immigration
authorities and state and local narcotics agencies. "We're not
talking about ill people who may be using marijuana but a large scale
operation generating millions of dollars," Ryan said.

Under the investigation dubbed "Operation Urban Harvest," raids have
occurred at more than 25 homes, warehouses and commercial properties
in San Francisco, the East Bay and the Peninsula over the past two years.

In all, more than 17,000 marijuana plants have been seized. Agents
also alleged in an affidavit unsealed Thursday that some of the
suspects may have also been distributors of the drug "ecstasy."

The affidavit describes a network of associates who hid behind
"nominee owners" of cannabis clubs. The majority of the profits came
not from medicinal marijuana sales, but from street sales. One of the
men arrested, San Francisco resident Enrique Chan, 26, allegedly told
an undercover agent he planned to use the clubs as a defense if arrested.

"If I have to go to court . . . I'll take these patients," Chan
allegedly said during a secretly taped conversation. "They say that,
you know, I'm providing for them . . . like really sick patents with
cancer . . . no jury is gonna . . . convict you."

Bruce Mirken, spokesman of the Marijuana Policy Project based in
Washington, D.C., said if the allegation that the clubs were used as
fronts is true, the federal government is to blame.

"If it is true that a few shady characters have gotten into the
medical marijuana business, the blame for that situation lies
squarely with the federal government," Mirken said in a prepared
statement. "The biggest obstacle to effective regulation is
antiquated federal law that criminalizes any effort to provide
medical marijuana to seriously ill patients."