SONORA FATHER AND SON TEAM UP IN ANGST

Christopher DeMars, a self-proclaimed minister, and his son, Christopher -
not junior - protested in Sonora's Courthouse Park a few weekends ago.

They weren't speaking against the Iraq war or the recall election or the
serving of irradiated meat to school children. They were demonstrating for
something they feel has been taken from them and many others in California:
the right to use medicinal marijuana.

"The whole street was packed. And only about 3 percent of people who passed
by spat at me. The rest were like this," the elder DeMars said, holding his
thumb up with a big smile on his face.

DeMars refers to himself as "the reverend" and says he is the pastor of the
"Church of Work," a 150-member congregation he says meets irregularly at
his Sonora Meadows home.

He won't say who ordained him or if he studied theology.

His congregation - which includes his son, a University of California,
Santa Barbara, grad - is "labor based." Members, the elder DeMars said,
find spiritual value in various projects involving physical labor.

But much of DeMars' time is devoted to the plight of those who take
marijuana for medical reasons.

At 48, DeMars suffers from multiple sclerosis, a disease that affects the
central nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.
He said he has double vision and chronic pain from his middle back all the
way to his toes.

"And I've had a pounding migraine headache for the past 20 years," he said.

To treat the pain, DeMars smokes marijuana that he grows for his own use.
But he said deputies have come more than a dozen times to his home and have
arrested him once.

Proposition 215 in 1996 gave Californians the right to grow and use
marijuana for medical purposes and with a doctor's permission.

Each county sets its own rules for how many plants a patient can grow. In
Tuolumne County, that number is three.

In September of 1999, said the elder DeMars, he was arrested after drug
agents found 45 small plants during a search.