MARIJUANA GIVEN OUT AT CITY HALL

The crowd at the medical marijuana giveaway outside city hall in Santa Cruz
Tuesday was light-hearted, but the message given by the speakers was not.
They spoke of pain, muscle spasms, severe weight loss and the trauma of
having the federal government raid the farm where they grow the one medicine
they say takes care of all of those symptoms without the side affects of
conventional drugs - marijuana.

"I was in a surfing accident about two years ago," said 23-year-old
quadriplegic Levi Castro, who is a member of the Wo/men's Alliance for
Medical Marijuana, which was raided Sept. 5 north of Santa Cruz. "I have
involuntary muscle spasms, I lost about 50 pounds when I was in the hospital
and I have a lot of nerve pain. It helps with all that."

WAMM provides medical marijuana, grown by members on a farm owned by Michael
and Valerie Corral, to about 280 patients with recommendations from their
doctors. The collective operates under a law approved by California voters
in 1996. Although growing and distributing medical marijuana is legal under
state law, the Supreme Court ruled last year that collectives like WAMM are
not free from prosecution under federal law.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has already raided marijuana clubs in San
Francisco, Oakland, Sebastapol and West Hollywood.

"I'm in pain all the time," said Tim Chambers, who has had colon cancer
three times since 1988. "I don't use it (marijuana) recreationally. It is my
medicine. If the DEA will take away my cancer, I'll never smoke pot again."

Doctor Arnie Leff, a general family practitioner who serves many local
HIV/AIDS patients, has written many recommendations for medical marijuana
for his patients. He only writes recommendations for existing patients who
either suffer from extreme weight loss, an inability to eat or a terminal
illness.

"We're here because City Hall is a sanctuary to us because some federal
agencies have taken a harassment position against us," he said. Often, many
of his patients use Marinol, a concentrated form of THC, the active chemical
in marijuana, before turning to the plant itself.

"For some reason, Marinol, which I can prescribe, doesn't always work," he
said. "There are chemicals in the plant that aren't in Marinol."

One patient, who identified himself only by the name Van, said, "Medical
marijuana has enabled me to stop taking medications that affected my heart."
The 83-year-old glaucoma and epilepsy patient added, "It's helped me for
almost seven years."

The Corrals have been in hiding since DEA agents raided the farm at their
Davenport home. The raid netted 167 nearly mature plants.

"We are not the enemy," Valerie Corral told the crowd. "We are the hungry,
we are the infirm, we are the dying ... and when we speak to the federal
government, they have no ears for us."

Onlookers chanted slogans, played guitars, and after the distribution of the
marijuana to WAMM patients, members of the street performance group Art and
Revolution re-enacted the raid of the farm with a military-looking man
harassing a female doctor and a blue-haired patient in a wheelchair.

Plainclothes officers could be seen wandering among the crowd of more than
1,000 city and county officials, including Mayor Christopher Krohn and much
of the Santa Cruz City Council, members of the press, onlookers and
patients, however no arrests were made and the rally went smoothly.

A green helicopter with unreadable markings circled over City Hall during
the rally, pausing directly overhead when the 13 members chosen by pulling
names from a hat went up one by one to collect their weekly ration of the
drug, which was baked into muffins and brownies and other products.

"We monitored the situation carefully and we take all violations of the law
seriously, but we decided not to confirm or deny our presence at the rally,"
DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said when asked about the helicopter.

He would not say whether any arrests would be made, but implied that some
action would be taken.

"We're still very concerned about the drug problem in Santa Cruz and we're
willing to work with local law enforcement," he said. "It is regrettable
that the mayor and the city took part in this action ... the mayor is not
above the law."

When asked if any more raids were planned, Meyer said, "Anybody that is
distributing marijuana, that is trafficking marijuana, should be worried
about the DEA."

Suzanne Pheil, a post-polio patient who was woken up by DEA agents at the
farm during the raid, said WAMM was not trafficking marijuana - its members
grow marijuana for their collective use and does not charge any of its
members.

"We are not the victims of drug traffickers - we are victims of the DEA,"
she said. "With a gun to my head the DEA stole the medicine that over 250
sick and dying people worked to grow."