MEDICINAL-POT RAID TO BE REMEMBERED

Advocates Plan Santa Cruz Festival

While its lawyers gird for their next round in court, the Wo/Men's Alliance
for Medical Marijuana is planning a party in the park.

Alliance founder Valerie Leveroni Corral said Sunday's WAMMfest -- billed
as the "first annual'' -- has two functions: "to share with the community
our gratitude for their support'' and "to show how we're regular people.''

But the WAMMfest posters and souvenir buttons make it clear there is a
third aspect to it. They show a green ribbon decorated with marijuana
leaves and the words, "Remember the Garden.''

The party also commemorates the Sept. 5, 2002, raid by agents of the
federal Drug Enforcement Agency on WAMM's cooperative marijuana farm near
Davenport. Agents held patients at gunpoint -- and sometimes handcuffed --
and seized 167 plants.

The raid boosted WAMM's community support, already strong.

The Santa Cruz City Council underlined its support of the group by allowing
the cooperative to make its regular distribution on the City Hall steps,
and by deputizing Valerie and Michael Corral. The county board of
supervisors approved an official Medical Marijuana Identification Card.

And the city and county both joined WAMM as plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking
to block such raids by federal agents. While California voters have
approved using marijuana for medicinal purposes, the federal government
considers pot an illegal drug.

Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel dismissed the lawsuit late last month, while
expressing sympathy for WAMM and granting the plaintiffs permission to
amend and refile it. Fogel had also rejected an earlier WAMM lawsuit
seeking the return of the seized marijuana plants.

An appeal of the seizure decision is to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Sept. 17. Rather than appeal the
second suit as well, WAMM lawyer Gerald Uelmen said the legal team will
amend that complaint and refile it ``to keep it in front of Judge Fogel
until we get a ruling from the 9th Circuit.''

Uelmen, one of a team of high-powered lawyers working on the case for free,
said he was disappointed but not surprised by Fogel's decision, which was
announced in a 28-page opinion that confirmed the supremacy of the U.S.
Controlled Substances Act, which bans marijuana, over California's
Compassionate Use Act, which approves it for use under a doctor's supervision.

"If he had ruled in our favor, it would've been a first,'' he said. "Our
hopes were up, but it's a long shot, especially at the district court
level, because district court judges really feel they have to follow the
precedent . . .

"He didn't really stick it to us. He wrote a very friendly and favorable
opinion.''

Uelmen said he will speak briefly at noon at Sunday's WAMMfest.

The party will include music by half a dozen bands, including Harmony
Grits, Bullfrog and Fruity Flavors. There will be vendors selling clothes,
glassware, snacks and industrial hemp products. There will be massage and
palm-reading. There will be barbecue, and bagels with cream cheese.

There also will be a place where WAMM's approximately 220 members, who have
HIV and AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other severe medical problems, can
smoke marijuana in private.

All WAMM functions have such a place, Corral said, adding that this is not
an invitation for recreational marijuana users to light up for pleasure or
protest. ``This is not a smoke-out.''

Under city park rules, however, the WAMMfest will be alcohol free. And city
police can cite non-medicinal marijuana users.

Corral, 51, was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that Fogel recently dismissed,
along with several other medicinal marijuana users. Her use stems from an
automobile accident more than a decade ago that left her epileptic. She
says marijuana helps her control seizures and live a normal life. "We want
to be regular,'' she said. "We want to be ordinary'' -- something she said
marijuana makes possible.

She possesses County of Santa Cruz Medical Cannabis User Identification
Card No. 3. Betsy McCarty, who heads the county's public-health program,
wouldn't say who has No. 1, except that it was a man very eager to be first
after the board of supervisors approved the cards June 12.

As of early this week the county had issued about 20, McCarty said, with
more appointments already scheduled for applicants. The cards identify
medical users to police and other authorities.

Corral thinks the cards are "a great thing'' because they're anonymous.
Once county health authorities have checked references and credentials and
issued a card, the paperwork is destroyed. "There is no 'list,' '' Corral said.