COAST TO COAST; A NATIONAL BRIEFING ON PEOPLE, ISSUES AND EVENTS AROUND THE
COUNTRY

After four more arrests and 800 seized plants, another cannabis club in
California is out of business.

That is the latest tally from the growing federal crackdown on medicinal
marijuana use around the state. In early morning raids a few days ago, Drug
Enforcement Administration agents swept into the Harm Reduction Center, a
San Francisco clinic that treats about 200 patients with marijuana, and
several homes in the Bay Area where the drug reportedly was being grown for
use as medicine.

California law allows the sick to use marijuana for medical purposes with a
physician's approval.

Federal authorities have ignored it ever since the Supreme Court ruled last
year that federal laws prohibiting use or distribution of the drug take
precedence.

Last fall, federal agents raided and closed the Los Angeles Cannabis
Resource Center in West Hollywood, which was one of the largest clinics of
its kind in the state.

Seven other states in the West have laws protecting patients who use
marijuana and doctors who prescribe it, but so far California is the focus
of the crackdown.

Federal officials say they have a responsibility to uphold the nation's
drug laws. But advocates for medicinal marijuana use call the raids
heartless because many patients taking the drug have AIDS or cancer.

Glenn Backes, director of a nonprofit group called the Drug Policy
Alliance, said, "With so many real problems relating to drugs, we can't
accept that busting doctors and patients should be a priority."

- -- Rene Sanchez