AT THE FRONT OF MARIJUANA STANDOFF

Proponent Fights To Help Patients

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- What do you do when you sue U.S. Atty. Gen. John
Ashcroft and win? Fifty-one-year-old Valerie Corral, a 5-foot tall
great-granddaughter of Italian immigrants, throws back her head laughing,
her hands reaching to the clouds, hips wiggling, feet stomping. "It's my
happy dance!" she says, throwing her arms around her husband, Mike.

She has also planted an acre of marijuana.

The decision that lets the crop remain is just one round in a long legal
battle.

Last month, a federal judge in San Jose issued a preliminary injunction
banning the Justice Department, including the Drug Enforcement
Administration, from interfering with the Corrals' pot garden, set above an
ocean bluff near Davenport, about an hour south of San Francisco. The
injunction gives the judge time to reconsider his earlier decision to allow
the garden to be uprooted.

Still, the Corrals call the injunction a victory.

They share their harvest through the first legally recognized, non-profit
medical marijuana club in America, which they founded in 1993. The club has
about 250 seriously ill members who have prescriptions from their doctors
to use marijuana to alleviate their suffering, increase their appetites and
control their seizures. The marijuana is free.

The San Jose ruling is one of a number challenging federal restrictions on
medical marijuana, which has consistently won support in national opinion
polls since 1995 but has had a mixed record in state ballot measures.

This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to hear
another case that could undo or affirm the Corrals' right to grow
pot--granted by state and local regulations, but denied by federal law. A
second case in federal court in San Francisco--in which other medicinal-use
growers seek to reclaim seized marijuana--could also affect the couple.

The Justice Department refused to comment.

For now, the Corrals are the only people in the United States growing
marijuana in their back yard who are also backed by state law, a local
ordinance and a federal judge's injunction. And Valerie Corral has become a
heroine to proponents of medical marijuana.

During the past three decades, while sharing marijuana with sick people,
Corral has watched 140 friends as they died of cancer, AIDS and other
illnesses.

"It is the greatest honor to be asked by a person who is dying to sit with
them," she said.