VIGIL HELD FOR CANNABIS CLUB

With waves of tears washing his face, Kirk Wilson described how he
hadn't been able to eat in three days and needed medical marijuana.

"I don't know now where to go to get anything. I feel sick all the
time, it is really unfair," Wilson said through sobs. "Especially
with all the [expletive] that is going on. It is the one stable
thing. I knew I could come here. God, what more do they want from my
psyche at this point?"

Wilson, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, has been a member of the
Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center for three years. He started
going to the LACRC after his doctor recommended that medical
marijuana could help him gain weight and said it was the first place
he found help.

"It is closed, I don't eat, I don't know where to go," Wilson said.
"It is lost. We can gather, we can cry, but it's the whole Supreme
Court."

Wilson stood near last Tuesday's candlelight vigil for the Los
Angeles Cannabis Resource Center that was raided by the Drug
Enforcement Agency on Oct. 25. The raid followed a May decision by
the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled marijuana does not have medical
value and that it is against federal law.

The Nov. 6 vigil also coincided with the five-year anniversary of the
passage by California voters of Proposition 215, or the Compassionate
Use Act, which legalized medical marijuana at the state level. The
state and federal laws are in conflict, but federal law trumps state
law.

"We voted," read one protest sign.

Moments later, LACRC President Scott Imler took the stage and
announced that "until legal issues are resolved, the LACRC co-op,
garden and its program are closed."

The crowd of more than 275 booed and hissed. Imler said they would do
the best they could to resuscitate the center, if possible. "We are
sorry," he added, "[but you] need to understand that the LACRC as it
existed is no more."

On the gloomy and cold night, LACRC members wept openly over the
closure of the center.

The LACRC was a nonprofit patient collective that grew and
distributed marijuana to its 960 members, who had doctor's
recommendations. Court documents establish that the LACRC is under
investigation for the "manufacturing and distribution of controlled
substances and related money-laundering offenses." No arrest warrants
have yet been issued.

Imler said that they are being treated like criminals and he is very
worried about arrests. He called the DEA raid a major escalation in
tactics and the first time that a patient's group has been raided.

The LACRC raid is part of a larger crackdown in Los Angeles: Imler
said the Santa Monica police busted the Santa Monica cannabis club a
few weeks before the LACRC raid. A sickle cell anemia self-help group
in South-Central Los Angeles was closed by the Los Angeles Police
Department on Oct. 5. An Inglewood club opted to shut itself down.
Imler says the 13 clubs in San Francisco are worried that federal
agents are on their way.

"They took the medical records. That's a no-no," a member of the
crowd yelled about the DEA's seizure of doctor's names and members'
medical records. The DEA also seized the marijuana plants, growing
equipment, computers and other paperwork.

Craig Harshbarger stood on the street corner holding a sign that
read, "DEA the other terrorist." Harshbarger is an LACRC member who
uses medical marijuana for Tourette's syndrome and
obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said that marijuana helps minimize
his vocal tics and twitching as well as allows him to relax.
Harshbarger said that since the DEA raid he can't get his medicine
and has been using tranquilizers.

"We voted, we made our decision, they are not respecting that. Bush
is a hypocrite. It makes me mad," Harshbarger said. They might "come
knock my door down for growing my own."

Capt. Lynda Castro, commanding officer of the West Hollywood
Sheriff's Station, spoke to the crowd and assured them that, for now
at least, the Sheriff's Department would not be knocking down medical
marijuana users' doors. Castro said that the local law and the
federal law were not in sync and that sheriff's deputies would
continue to do "the right thing."

Castro noted that recently two patients who cultivated marijuana
plants had come in contact with sheriff's deputies and the situations
were treated as a patient issue, with no arrests and no seizures.

Castro said that until the conflict between the laws is clarified,
sheriff's deputies would honor patients' rights and would act "based
on compassion as well as what the law calls for," the law being
California's Proposition 215.

Wendy Stone openly cried as she described that she has a 10-year-old
child and can't take the risk of getting medical marijuana illegally.
Stone uses medical marijuana to help stop cramping related to an
ulcerative colitis.

"It's awful. I have no medicine, I have to take larger doses of
narcotics for the pain, and there is a greater risk of becoming
dependent. It's all I can do," Stone said.

Councilman and LACRC legal counsel John Duran roused the crowd with a
speech about civil rights movements and their necessary struggles.

"We will know we have won when marijuana is rescheduled. That is the
goal," Duran said. He listed the other states with medical marijuana
legislation -- Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado,
Arizona and Maine. "We do not stand alone.

"Until their unjust principles crumble, and they will, we are not
leaving this corner," he said. "Stay close, we're going to need one
another, some may be arrested, some may spend some time in jail....

"You stood up to the federal government and joined a long list of
activists," Duran said to applause.

LACRC Vice President Jeffrey Farrington, a glaucoma patient, who
supervised the plants and is named in the court documents, said that
he is "more concerned with going blind than going to jail," and added
that if he goes to jail he will also go blind.

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg said that the Republican party touted
itself as the party of states' rights but that with the raid they
have shown they don't mean it. "What they are about is power," she
said.

Goldberg questioned how, when they can't fix the safety at the
airports, they "can worry about 960 people getting the medicine they
need to stay alive and out of pain."

Councilman Steve Martin said that he would "invite George Bush to
come to West Hollywood and meet the people here and see if he has the
courage or the cojones to stand by the decision that's been made by
the [DEA]."

"No cojones," yelled a member of the audience.

Assemblyman Paul Koretz spoke to the crowd about how the fifth
anniversary of the passage of Proposition 215 turned out to be a sad
day. He said he hoped for the day that "marijuana was available in
the pharmacy and not through the street, which is unfortunately the
only choice you have now."

Harry Scheiver is in a wheelchair because of spastic paraplegia
related to AIDS. He said that without medical marijuana his spasms
get so bad that it is unbearable. Now, he said his life partner will
have to go to the streets for marijuana, which they did five years
ago, and were robbed.

Congressman Henry Waxman wrote a letter describing his outrage and
that he is a co-sponsor of House Bill 1344, which would let states
decide the issue of medical marijuana for themselves.

Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter, Lyn Nofziger, also wrote a
letter saying that though he was a conservative Republican he
supported the legalization of medical marijuana because his daughter
died of cancer and medical marijuana helped her before her death.

During the night, the LACRC members responded to a gong and then
proceeded in a single line from the empty center across the street to
the vigil.

"Amazing Grace" was sung, sheriff's deputies stopped traffic, the
media cameras flashed and patient after patient walked solemnly
across the street -- some being pushed in wheelchairs, others with
canes. The flag in front of the LACRC hung upside down, a symbol of
being under siege.

Fifty-six flags were carried to represent the 56 percent of
Californians who voted for Proposition 215. After the members
reassembled, a fire truck and an ambulance drove by and they raised
their candles and cheered.

"La lucha continua," promised Marlene Rasnick, a ovarian cancer
patient -- the struggle continues.