MARIJUANA USER WAITING FOR THE SMOKE TO CLEAR

Victor Allen Love is imbedded in his favorite La-Z-Boy recliner,
ignoring the parade of Democratic presidential contenders kissing Iowa
babies on the television set in the corner.

Though the smoke has cleared, the acrid sweetness of marijuana is
still strong in the room. The inch-long stub of Love's breakfast joint
is still in an ashtray nearby, next to his Bible -- cold now and
awaiting his inevitable pang of afternoon arthritis.

Love, bearded and barefoot, wants me to know it's OK. He has a
doctor's note for his pot. Two, actually, from two doctors. And reams
of material about the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, the country's
first medical marijuana law.

The law, enacted as Proposition 215, permits Californians with certain
medical problems, including cancer and HIV, to grow and use marijuana
to knock back pain and nausea, but only on the recommendation of a
physician.

To Love, who says he also suffers from gout and asthma, the law is a
godsend. He placed a sign citing the law in the 35-by-10-foot garden
out in back of his double-wide, in the Lake Isabella-area burg of
Mountain Mesa. It stood there like a scarecrow against sheriff's
deputies and others who would question his right to grow.

It didn't do him much good.

Deputies tore out his plants last September and arrested him and his
girlfriend, Deborah Peugh, on charges of cultivation and possession
with intent to sell. She goes to court today for her preliminary
hearing; Love's day in court is Friday.

He's been in Kern County courtrooms before, having been arrested on
gun and marijuana possession charges in 1992 and 1994. And there might
easily have been more on his rap sheet. He claims to have quit his
motorcycle gang, Los Compadres, after the Hells Angels killed a man at
a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in 1969. And he was a
heavy heroin user but quit, he says, thanks to an LSD-induced moment
of clarity.

Now he's an ordained minister in the nondenominational Church of the
Here and Now, and though he lacks the traditional vestments of clergy,
he's got the emphatic baritone of a man of the cloth. The Rev. Love's
cloth just happens to be tie-dyed.

On this particular day he's preaching the gospel of ganja. Medicinal
cannabis works, Love says, booming authoritatively over the drone of
the TV.

If he had enough, he says, he'd share with anybody who asked --
provided they had a legitimate medical need, backed up by a doctor's
letter. If he thought he could do it and still stay out of jail, he'd
gladly be the chief proprietor of a nonprofit Lake Isabella Cannabis
Club.

Why? Because cannabis is infinitely better than this, Love explains,
reaching across a cluttered lamp table to pick up a jam jar-sized
bottle of white, oval pills -- hydrocodone, a powerful and addictive
prescription painkiller. Legitimately obtained, he notes.

Of course, Love contends, so was the marijuana.

The Sheriff's Department, which uprooted and hauled away Love's crop
last Sept. 10, apparently disagrees. Deputies, who found the plants --
some as big as five feet tall -- growing across the back fence of
Love's property, say they saw too much traffic outside the place for
Love's operation to be anything other than a for-profit enterprise.

When they burst in, armed with a search warrant, they found a number
of telltale items, most notably about $800 in cash and an Ohaus-brand
scale. But, Love says pointedly, no pay-and-owe logs.

Deputies yanked out the 16 plants -- Love says there were only 13 --
along with his carrots, tomatoes, beets, spinach, corn, snap peas and
butternut squash. He's especially mad about the butternut squash.

And now his stash is down to this: three fat green-brown buds, one of
the Thai variety, the other two from a cannabis family he fondly calls
"Fruity Pebbles." The samples survived the sheriff's raid only because
he'd previously buried them in a Mason jar.

If the Rev. Love had his druthers, he wouldn't be smoking pot at all;
he'd be grinding it into a fine powder and sauteing it every morning
with butter, garlic and onion for his breakfast burrito. (Chicken and
refried beans complete the recipe.) Eating it, Love says, numbs the
pain and minimizes the drug's inebriating effect, and he can customize
his dose to meet that day's pain level -- hence the scale.

Explaining all that will be part of his strategy this week. He's
hoping for the same outcome that Lori Lane Feliciano got in 2002, when
her Kern County case involving the alleged cultivation of six
marijuana plants was thrown out; she had also cited the Compassionate
Use Act.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Hal Chealander, whose Lake Isabella-based deputies
carried out the search on Love's home, says the Compassionate Use Act
doesn't create a legal force field around people who cultivate
marijuana -- for medicinal purposes or otherwise. It merely provides a
potential defense in court. Deciding whether it applies to the case at
hand will be up to the jury. Love says he's anxious to get all this
settled. After all, it's already January. Planting time is right
around the corner.