MARIJUANA CLUB FOUNDER FACES CHARGES

Federal prosecutors filed charges Friday against the founder of a North Bay
medical marijuana club, accusing him of crimes which could put him behind
bars for life. Robert Schmidt, 52, founder of the Genesis 1:29 medical
marijuana organization, is charged with one count of manufacturing and
possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. The U.S. Attorney's office
says DEA agents seized 3,454 marijuana plants in a Thursday morning raid at
Genesis' farm in Sebastopol; a Petaluma dispensary office was raided too.

This count carries a maximum penalty of life in federal prison with a
10-year mandatory minimum sentence, plus a fine of $4 million.

Schmidt also is charged with one count of assaulting a federal agent.
Prosecutors say he grabbed a DEA agent's assault rifle and tried to wrest
it away during the Sebastopol raid. This count carries a maximum penalty of
three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

Schmidt made his first court appearance Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge
Joseph Spero of San Francisco. He will remain in custody at least until a
bail hearing at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The federal government deems all marijuana growth, possession or use
illegal, even though California voters approved medical use in 1996.
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington have
similar laws.

Accounts of the raid -- and the basis of the assault charge filed against
Schmidt -- differ widely.

"They woke him up with a gun to his head saying 'Get on the ground,' and he
probably assumed he was being ripped off, so he just grabbed the barrel of
the gun, and then they started beating him," said Schmidt's son, Genesis
1:29 CEO Ryan Bonelli, on Friday. "There was no struggle, there was nothing
like that. We're completely peaceful here."

But an affidavit filed by DEA Special Agent Brian Padgett says Schmidt was
awake and on his feet when he refused to obey commands from clearly
identified agents, and then tried to wrest Padgett's rifle from him in a
brief scuffle.

Exactly one week before this raid, almost to the hour, DEA agents raided
the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana near Santa Cruz, about 60 miles
south of San Francisco. WAMM co-founders Val and Mike Corral -- who helped
author California's medical marijuana law -- were arrested but released the
same day when prosecutors declined to file charges. The DEA has said the
167 plants seized in that raid were destroyed.

Santa Cruz City Council members have invited the Corrals to dispense
marijuana from a city hall courtyard on Tuesday afternoon. The DEA has
declined to say whether it will act there.

Steph Sherer, director of Berkeley-based Americans For Safe Access, said
medical marijuana advocates across the nation are being told to stage
protests outside their jurisdictions' federal buildings at noon Monday in
support of Schmidt and Genesis 1:29's patients.

Genesis 1:29 is named for the Bible passage which reads, "And God said,
Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of
all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed; to you it shall be for meat."