ACTIVISTS OPPOSE RAID OF DISPENSARY

Calling themselves a "grass" roots organization, more than 150 people
met at Beach Park Saturday and marched to City Hall in support of
marijuana reform and in opposition to what they see as federal
harassment of patients' rights including the raid on Nature's
Medicinal Cooperative in Oildale last week.

Fifty pounds of marijuana was seized during the raid, as well as
about $50,000 in cash, Drug Enforcement Agency agents said. Both the
store and Chavez's house in Stockdale Estates were raided. The store
reopened the next day. David Chavez Jr., the son of the dispensary
owner, was arrested on suspicion of possession of a small amount of cocaine.

Saturday's march, scheduled for noon, was slow to build and noon
became around 12:30 p.m.

"They're a bunch of stoners," joked Douglas McAfee, local president
for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws. "They take a while to get here."

"They" were a colorful group -- tie-dye, tattoos and mohawks -- and
the color extended to the smell of marijuana wafting through the air
as several marchers put their mouths where their money was.

"I smoked some right before the rally," said Melissa Pease "I'm
feeling totally relaxed."

A sense of relaxed activism permeated the crowd at Beach Park prior
to the march. The marchers, some of whom were in wheelchairs and on
crutches, were more concerned about whether they could make the mile
and a half walk to City Hall, and if they did, if they could walk
back. Protesters attested to the benefit of medical marijuana and its
ability to reduce pain.

"When I got stabbed in the neck, Vicodin did not not work but
marijuana took away the pain," said 28-year-old Levi McLean. "Then,
after my girlfriend made me mad and I slugged the (solid oak wood)
cabinet, smoking marijuana made that pain in my hand go away, too."