PETALUMAN FACES POT CHARGES AFTER 2-NATION BUST

Suspect's Marijuana Club Called Front For Drug Dealing

A Petaluma man who was acquitted in a medical marijuana case last year is
now facing federal charges that his pot club is a front for drug dealing.

Kenneth E. Hayes was arrested in Canada on Tuesday as federal agents raided
the San Francisco club and seven other locations, including his home.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents said Hayes is the head of an
organization that grows and distributes "large quantities" of marijuana.

At the center of that organization, DEA agents said in an affidavit filed
Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is the marijuana buyers club.

Hayes, 34, is a co-director of the club, which is called the Harm Reduction
Center.

The club is one of many that opened after voters in 1996 approved
Proposition 215, an initiative that allowed marijuana use for medical
purposes with a doctor's recommendation.

In the affidavit, the club is described as a front through which Hayes sold
marijuana on a far larger scale than was needed to supply the estimated 200
people who visit daily to use the drug for medical purposes.

Sonoma County prosecutors made similar allegations in a case that went to
trial last year. Hayes and a co-defendant were acquitted. San Francisco
District Attorney Terrence Hallinan testified on their behalf.

Hayes was arrested Tuesday by Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a private
home in Vancouver, British Columbia, on suspicion of "cultivating
marijuana," RCMP Sgt. Herb Wilberg said.

Hayes was released by a Canadian judge Wednesday, Wilberg said, and is due
to appear in court Feb. 27.

"We would have preferred that he would have been released into our
custody," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman.

Meyer said the DEA had "coordinated" with Canadian police, but the Canadian
charges are "separate" from those Hayes is wanted for in the United States.

"If he's not in custody, he's a fugitive," Meyer said.

Advocates of medical marijuana roundly criticized the DEA, saying the
government trampled the rights of voters and public officials who approved
its use.

"Clearly the government has got their sights aimed on medical marijuana
patients and caregivers," said Ernest "Doc" Knapp, spokesman for the Sonoma
Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

On Tuesday, agents from the DEA, U.S. Customs Service and the IRS searched
a ranch that Hayes rents on the outskirts of Petaluma, confiscating nearly
200 pot plants.

Agents also raided seven other locations in Oakland and San Francisco. All
together, the operation resulted in three arrests, and the seizure of
thousands of pot plants, $58,500 in cash and two firearms, Meyer said.

The action coincided with President Bush's announcement that he would ramp
up the government's war on drugs, hoping to cut drug use by 25 percent in
five years.

Of the 8,130 plants confiscated Tuesday, 630 were from Hayes' marijuana
buyers club in San Francisco's South of Market district.

The affidavit said Hayes launders the proceeds of drug sales in Canada and
the United States but doesn't specify whether the club is thought to be the
main avenue for laundering. It said more than $900,000 is held in four
separate bank accounts in the name of Hayes and the club.

The DEA's Meyer said that federal law supersedes Proposition 215, but that
the latest action wasn't aimed at clubs like the one raided Tuesday.

"We did not target the medical marijuana club," he said. "The investigation
led us to the club."

The club reopened for business shortly after the authorities left Tuesday.

"We're not a drug cartel or drug traffickers of any nature," said Dave
Witty, the club's chief of security.

Hayes, said Witty, has "put his life on the line for the cause of cannabis
freedom."