DEFIANT GROUP GIVES MARIJUANA TO PATIENTS

SAN FRANCISCO -- Officials in the liberal seaside town of Santa Cruz may
not be marijuana smokers, but on Tuesday they became pot purveyors with a
political cause.

In a display of defiance triggered by a recent federal bust of a local
medical marijuana club, Mayor Christopher Krohn and six City Council
members met outside City Hall to watch as workers from the Women's Alliance
for Medical Marijuana dispensed the drug to sick people.

Several hundred residents filled City Hall plaza to cheer speakers and
throw an old-fashioned anti-government rally.

Workers handed out small bags of marijuana to a dozen patients who would
have normally picked up their medication in private Tuesday. Each time the
drug was dispensed, the crowd cheered loudly, said Santa Cruz Vice Mayor
Emily Reilly.

Richard Meyer, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in San
Francisco, was not amused.

"We're dismayed that the City Council and the mayor of Santa Cruz would
condone the distribution of marijuana," he said. "I don't know what they're
thinking, but they're flouting federal law. And we here at the DEA take
violations of the law very seriously."

Marijuana--medical or otherwise--is illegal under federal law. But under
California law, the drug is legal if it is recommended by a doctor.

On Sept. 5, federal agents raided a Santa Cruz medical marijuana
collective, arrested three people and confiscated 130 plants.

The move was met with outrage by residents of this surfers' haven and
college town.

Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington also have
passed laws allowing marijuana to be grown and distributed to patients with
a prescription.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the 1996 California voter
initiative legalizing medical marijuana doesn't provide a defense against
federal prosecution. Since then, the state has become the target of Bush
administration efforts to crack down on the drug's use.