OFFICIALS IN CALIFORNIA CITY TO PASS OUT MEDICINAL POT

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -(AP)- City officials 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 city, medical marijuana is welcome.

The invitation comes a week after Drug Enforcement Administration agents
arrested the owners of a pot farm and confiscated 130 plants that had been
grown for medicinal use.

"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. Along with several City Council colleagues, she plans to distribute
marijuana to people with prescriptions at the City Hall courtyard Tuesday.

A 2000 city ordinance allows the cultivation and use of medical marijuana
without a prescription.

Although the council passed a resolution denouncing the raid, there is no
official city sponsorship of the event -- council members and medical
marijuana advocates are acting on their own in a public space, City Attorney
John Barisone said.

DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said: "That's illegal. It's like they're
flouting federal law."

Meyer would not say whether federal agents would be present at the event.

State law in California -- as well as in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- allows the growth and distribution of
marijuana to people with a prescription. Federal law prohibits all pot use.

In recent months, federal agents -- without local support -- have been
busting pot clubs and farms in northern California, including the pot farm
raid last week about 55 miles south of San Francisco. Owners Valerie and
Michael Corral were arrested.

No indictment has yet been filed against the couple, who are medical
marijuana activists.