City Plans
Protest With Pot Giveaway
By MARTHA MENDOZA
.c The
Associated Press
Calif. City Plans Marijuana
Giveaway
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) - City leaders plan to
join medical marijuana users
at a pot giveaway at City Hall next week,
hoping to send a message to federal
authorities that, in this town, medical
marijuana is welcome.
The invitation comes one week after agents from the
Drug Enforcement Agency
arrested the high-profile owners of a pot farm and
confiscated 130 plants
that had been grown to be used as
medicine.
``It's just absolutely loathsome to me that federal money,
energy and staff
time would be used to harass people like this,'' said vice
mayor Emily
Reilly, who with several City Council colleagues plans to pass
out medical
marijuana to sick people from the garden-like courtyard at City
Hall on
Tuesday.
Though the council passed a resolution denouncing
the raid, there is no
official city sponsorship of the event - council
members and medical
marijuana advocates are simply acting on their own in a
public space, said
City Attorney John Barisone.
DEA spokesman Richard
Meyer was surprised at the plan.
``Are you serious? That's illegal. It's
like they're flouting federal law,''
he said. ``I'm shocked that city
leaders would promote the use of marijuana
that way. What is that saying to
our youth?''
State law in California, as well as Alaska, Colorado,
Hawaii, Maine, Nevada,
Oregon and Washington, allows marijuana to be grown
and distributed to people
with a doctor's prescription. Federal law
prohibits marijuana use under any
circumstances.
In recent months,
federal agents - working without local support - have been
busting pot clubs
and farms in Northern California, including a small pot
farm last week about
55 miles south of San Francisco, arresting owners
Valerie and Michael
Corral.
No indictment was filed against the couple, leading activists for
medical
marijuana; their attorney said federal authorities do not plan to
prosecute.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she could not
comment.
California medical marijuana growers and distributors work
closely with local
law enforcement, and are quite open about their programs.
In fact, the farm
raided by DEA agents had been featured in national media,
and the program is
listed in the local telephone book.
``The courage
of the Santa Cruz City Council and the growing anger in
Congress are signs
of a genuine grassroots rebellion all across this country
that will put an
end to these attacks on the sick and vulnerable,'' said
Robert Kampia,
executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana
Policy
Project.
In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a measure
ending the
prohibition of medical marijuana. Four years later, state voters
approved
Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes. And in
2000, the
city council approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to
be grown and
used without a prescription.