MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS PLAN MASSIVE PROTEST

BERKELEY- Erik Levy said he's been arrested twice for using marijuana for
medicinal purposes, and he's willing to give up his freedom again to
protect the rights of other patients whose access to the drug is being
threatened.

Levy and hundreds of activists across the state met over the weekend to
prepare for the national "day of direct action" scheduled for Thursday. On
that day, more than a thousand advocates for medical marijuana are planning
to picket, rally and risk arrest in 54 U.S. cities to protest what they
refer to as the Drug Enforcement Agency's "attempt to recriminalize medical
cannabis."

Bay Area activists are planning to protest at the Oakland and San Francisco
federal buildings at noon.

"My mother thinks I'm a criminal because I use this stuff, and that really
upsets me." said Levy, 41, a founding member of the Lamps League of
American Marijuana Patients and Supporters in San Francisco. He uses the
drug to treat a chronic form of depression he was diagnosed with.

The small group who gathered Sunday were schooled on how to participate in
an effective nonviolent action - whether their role is passing out leaflets
or resisting arrest during a sit-in.

They brainstormed on creative ways to catch the eye of DEA officials and
the media for Thursday's demonstration. Some ideas included planting
marijuana gardens in front of protest sites, staging a mock funeral and
flooding federal communication lines with faxes and telephone calls listing
their demands.

"We ask ourselves, how much disruption is too much? But I feel the DEA is
making me do this, " said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for
Safe Access in Berkeley.

"We need the federal government to enforce the law. We know that medical
marijuana works and it's not right that at any moment the DEA can come in
and bust patients who use it."

Proposition 215, passed by 56 percent of California voters in 1996,
protects seriously and terminally ill patients from criminal penalties for
using marijuana.

But about a year after the law was passed, owners of cannabis centers found
themselves caught in lawsuits brought by federal and state law enforcement
officials, or defending themselves from criminal charges related to their
operations.

Organizers said the nationwide action is in direct response to DEA raids on
eight medical marijuana dispensaries in California that may be forced to
close their doors after court proceedings concluded on or after June 6.

The group claims that Attorney General John Ashcroft and DEA officials
embarked on a campaign last fall to close down medical marijuana
cooperatives operating within the constraints of the law.

The Cannabis Action Network is demanding: (1) that President Bush and
Attorney General John Ashcroft declare a moratorium on "the federal
anti-medical marijuana campaign" and grant states the right to choose and
govern medical marijuana laws; (2) that Bush declare support of the States
Rights to Medical Marijuana Act introduced in the House last year; (3) that
all prosecutions against medical marijuana patients, growers and
dispensaries stop.

Dr. Mike Alcalay, medical director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer
Cooperative, which is temporarily barred from distributing medical
marijuana due to a Supreme Court decision last year, said the government is
ignoring all the information about medicinal marijuana.

"It's one of the safest drugs out there. No one dies of an overdose," said
Alcalay, who uses marijuana to treat his illness, AIDS.

"This has nothing to do with science, it's all about politics."