DEA RAIDS CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA FARM JUST BEFORE HARVEST

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) -- Federal agents raided a marijuana farm Thursday
and arrested the owners, who grow the pot for a medical users club,
surprising community members and local law enforcement.

Officers seized more than 100 marijuana plants, three rifles and a shotgun
in the pre-dawn raid, said Drug Enforcement Agent spokesman Richard Meyer
in San Francisco.

Valerie and Michael Corral were arrested on federal charges of intent to
distribute marijuana and conspiracy, he said.

The Corrals helped write the provision in California's Proposition 215
which allows patients and their caregivers to cultivate their own medicine.
Their farm has been featured in national media and they work with local
authorities to grow and distribute their pot to people with doctors'
recommendations to use marijuana.

The raid was a surprise to local medical marijuana growers and advocates,
as well as the Santa Cruz County sheriff and even DEA officials in the
agency's closest office, in San Jose.

The marijuana farm about 15 miles north of Santa Cruz is well known to
local law officers, who follow state medical marijuana law rather than
federal drug laws, said sheriff's spokesman Kim Allen.

"The DEA didn't tell us they did this, not before, and not after," he said.

Steven Reiniger, DEA task force officer in San Jose said he didn't know
anything about the raid either.

DEA agents have repeatedly cracked down on high-profile medical marijuana
advocates and distribution clubs recently in California, bypassing local
law enforcement agencies that have condoned these activities.

In February, agents seized hundreds of plants from a San Francisco club and
arrested one of its suppliers, pot guru Ed Rosenthal, author of "Ask Ed:
Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted."

Federal agents also raided three other cannabis clubs in California,
seizing a garden of marijuana in Hollywood and taking away the records of
5,000 medical marijuana users from a doctor's office near Sacramento.

Andrea Tischler, owner of the Compassion Flower Inn in Santa Cruz -- a bed
and breakfast inn where guests with doctors recommendations are allowed to
use medical marijuana -- said she was outraged.

"We're absolutely shocked that the DEA would step in like this at harvest
time when so many patients would be able to benefit from this medication,"
she said. "This is the one crop of the year they were growing."

About 200 patients are served by the Corral's Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical
Marijuana.

Santa Cruz has been at the forefront of medical marijuana efforts in
California and nationally.

In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a measure ending the
medical prohibition of marijuana. Four years later, state voters_ including
74 percent of those in Santa Cruz -- approved Proposition 215, allowing
marijuana for medicinal purposes. And then again, in 2000, the City Council
approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to be grown and used
without a prescription.

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington
allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke marijuana for medical
purposes without fear of state prosecution. However, the federal government
maintains marijuana has no medical benefits and is an illegal drug.