RAID QUESTIONED AT SAN DIEGO MEDICAL MARIJUANA TASK FORCE MEETING

Vice Lt. On Marijuana Task Force Said To Have Coordinated Seizure

A recent raid by the San Diego Police of a medical marijuana caregiver's
garden became the central topic of discussion at a Medical Marijuana Task
Force meeting held downtown, May 17. Since the last meeting of the task
force, in April, the San Diego Police made headlines in the Union Tribune
when it was reported that they raided the home of Dianne Vesprini, accusing
her of illegal possession of medical cannabis plants.

Vesprini argued that she was a caregiver and was growing it for her own
medical need, as well as the needs of three other patients who were not set
up to grow the plants in their own homes. Vice officers said that she did
not meet the definition of a caregiver dubiously outlined in California's
medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215, seizing half a dozen
full-grown plants and two-dozen seedlings.

Though a majority of the state's voters passed the law in 1996, giving
legitimate medical users the right to procure and use the drug under a
doctors orders, the nebulously worded law and its continual conflict with
federal drug laws have been a constant problem. Many HIV/AIDS patients are
prescribed the drug to stave off the effects of AIDS Wasting Syndrome and
relieve pain.

"The incident that happened with Dianne Vesprini is not an isolated
incident," Steve McWilliams of Shelter From the Storm Cannabis Collective
told the Gay and Lesbian Times. "It's just a continuing pattern of terror
that the police have going here; going out to people's homes, outright
taking the plants and destroying them whether or not any arrests are made or
there's any kind of prosecution."

The arrests sparked a debate at the task force meeting over the true
definition of a caregiver. Unfortunately, traditional health and safety
codes state that a caregiver is someone responsible for the well-being of
every aspect of a person's life, including housing and health or safety.
With modern insurance standards, this would not cover someone who is merely
growing medicinal marijuana for patients, and it is highly unlikely that
patients would be able to find a caregiver who would take on all of the
traditional responsibilities of a caregiver, along with growing the medicine
they need.

"The problem is, there really isn't a good [definition for caregiver],"
Juliana Humphrey of the Medical Marijuana Task Force explained. "It's left
open in the law and it's been interpreted in different ways in the case law.
I am in the process of writing a legal memorandum as to how we should be
interpreting it."

Humphrey, who is still researching the definition that the task force will
try to put in place, did say that they consider a caregiver to be someone
who helps a patient obtain the medicine they need and does not necessarily
provide any other care. The police enforcing the law are using the narrowest
interpretation of the caregiver definition under current law.

At one point in the meeting, McWilliams made a motion for the task force to
remove from the board Lieutenant Cesar Solis, a representative from the San
Diego Vice Department who sits on the board.

"He has no honesty or integrity," McWilliams said of Solis. "This incident
with Dianne - Lt. Solis was the man at headquarters the detectives out there
at Dianne's place were talking to. They were in real time contact with him
and he was the one who ordered them to destroy the plants."

Advisory board members Dale Kelly Bankhead of the ACLU, Al Best and St.
Clair Adams all voiced opposition to the motion, but did call for the
addition of a representative from the Chief of Police's office to sit on the
board. McWilliams eventually amended his motion and also moved that a
representative of the SDPD Chief David Bejarano's office should be appointed
to the task force.

"I think it's always more helpful to keep people on there who are dealing
with the day-to-day issues, and that certainly is the Lieutenant [Solis],"
Humphrey said. "I share Mr. McWilliams' concern, because on this seizure of
plants.....Lt. Solis was on the other end of the phone. If anyone should
know to stop the process it should be him. I feel like we are having a
failure to communicate."

Humphrey added that she is still withholding judgment on the police's
actions until their side of the story comes out in a case report that was to
be filed this week.