San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Maria Alicia Gaura, Chronicle Staff Writer

As street musicians performed in the background and an unmarked green helicopter hovered persistently overhead, the mayor and five of six City Council members, three former mayors and the city's representative on the county Board of Supervisors joined with an estimated 1,000 citizens to show support for medical pot.

The crowd, alert for signs that federal agents might stage a raid, shook their fists at the helicopter and chanted, "DEA, go away!"

Rich Meyer, spokesman for the federal anti-drug agency, wouldn't say whether the helicopter belonged to the DEA or whether plainclothes agents were in the crowd.

The rally was in response to the Sept. 5 bust of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a Santa Cruz-based collective of more than 230 members whose doctors have recommended they use marijuana to relieve symptoms of illness. DEA agents chopped down the group's 2002 marijuana crop and arrested founders Valerie and Mike Corral. The Corrals were released that day and have not been charged with any crime.

More than a dozen seriously ill patients came forward at Tuesday's rally -- in wheelchairs, with canes or on emaciated legs -- to stock up on cannabis tincture, cannabis-laced milk, buds for smoking and bright green marijuana muffins. Despite fears of a bust, no arrests were made.

"I think (the federal government) will find that going after Mike and Valerie was a big mistake," said Dale Gieringer, spokesman for NORML, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. "This case could be their Waterloo."

DEA spokesman Meyer was dismissive of such claims and hinted that city officials may be criminally liable for their stance.

"We take violations of the law seriously, and today the federal drug laws were broken in Santa Cruz, in the presence of the mayor and City Council," Meyer said. "The message I got was that officials there have not upheld their oath to uphold and enforce the law."

A SHARP BACKLASH

The DEA raid infuriated local officials, who had worked with WAMM for years to create a verification and distribution system that would conform to California's Proposition 215 -- which legalized medical marijuana use -- and prevent ailing people from being forced to rely on black-market marijuana.

WAMM's members grow their own organic pot for distribution within the group.

The collective has operated openly in Santa Cruz since 1996, when Proposition 215 passed. The federal government has always asserted that marijuana use for any reason is illegal, however, and has recently raided a string of medical marijuana clubs across the state.

But the WAMM raid provoked a sharp backlash. Even state Attorney General Bill Lockyer has challenged the federal government's authority in the case.

The Corrals' legal representatives, led by Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, hope the facts in WAMM's case will allow for a successful challenge of federal authority. Since the U.S. attorney seems reluctant to file criminal charges, Uelmen plans to sue the DEA, demanding return of seized property and a reassessment of the law.

'A HIGHER LAW'

Since WAMM grows its own pot for personal use, Uelmen questions whether the federal government's right to regulate interstate commerce should apply.

And since the DEA has shown a pattern of busting medical marijuana providers but then failing to prosecute them, he argues that the raids are illegal "punitive expeditions," which are illegal under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

"When you boil it down, one issue in the case of the U.S. vs. Valerie and Mike Corral, and 238 sick and dying people, is: Has compassion for the sick and dying become a federal crime?" Uelmen said Tuesday, to deafening cheers. "WAMM is a collective hospice, where giving comfort and love to those afflicted with AIDS and other serious illness is the only priority. This is recognition of a higher law that commands us to love one another."

County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said that local officials have few options in confronting an unfair federal system and that Santa Cruz residents are solidly behind her and her colleagues.

"There is little we can do except standing by the people who are so courageously defying the law," she said.

'NOT ABOUT DEFIANCE'

Few communities have been as fervent in their support of medical marijuana as has Santa Cruz, where 77 percent of voters approved a local ordinance in 1992 and 81 percent approved Proposition 215.

Still, there were a few brave dissidents in Tuesday's crowd, one of whom held a sign reading: "Someone has to be the grown-up around here."

But Valerie Corral thanked Santa Cruz for its unstinting support of her group and her cause, and urged the rowdier members of the crowd to behave.

"Thank you for offering this sanctuary that Santa Cruz is for so many people," Corral said. "Please, don't smoke or drink here, please don't confuse our message. Our message is not about defiance. It is about peaceful assembly, a coalition of humanity that pleads for the same respect from our government."

E-mail the writer at mgaura@sfchronicle.com.
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