CITY OFFICIALS TO HAND OUT POT

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - City leaders plan to join medical marijuana users at a
pot giveaway at City Hall next week, hoping to send a message to federal
authorities that, in this town, medical marijuana is welcome.

The invitation comes one week after agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency
arrested the high-profile owners of a pot farm and confiscated 130 plants
that had been grown to be used as medicine.

"It's just absolutely loathsome to me that federal money, energy and staff
time would be used to harass people like this," said vice mayor Emily
Reilly, who with several City Council colleagues plans to pass out medical
marijuana to sick people from the gardenlike courtyard at City Hall on
Tuesday.