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Quick Hits (page 4)

DEA Agents Raid Medical Marijuana Farm

By: Brian Seals (Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Federal agents raided a medical-marijuana club's garden Thursday, carting off 130 plants, arresting the club's outspoken director and leaving 238 members wondering where they will get their medicine.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents ambushed the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana garden just north of Davenport about 7 a.m.

The cooperative grows marijuana for members, who must have a doctor's prescription. The club does not sell to the public.

Alliance director Valerie Corral and her husband, Michael, who live on the property, were arrested on federal charges of intent to distribute marijuana, DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said.

The couple was released Thursday afternoon.

"We're awaiting indictment," Valerie Corral said that night, promising the alliance would continue its efforts.

"We just can't allow this type of harm to be caused," said Corral, who smokes marijuana to relieve pain caused by epilepsy. "I'm not going to stop. We will live to have another smoke."

Meyer said the raid was triggered by a tip from a confidential source, though the club has been in existence for years. Its' been the subject of national media stories and has never hid its operation from area authorities.

The Corrals are well known locally and nationally in the continuing debate over medicinal marijuana. They helped craft state Proposition 215, a voter-approved initiative passed in 1996 that allows marijuana for medicinal purposes.

But while Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington allow the sick to legally receive, possess, grow or smoke marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution, the federal government maintains marijuana has no medical benefits and is an illegal drug.

Suzanne Pfeil, an alliance member staying at the Corral's, said she was awakened by two-dozen camouflage-clad agents in helmets who pointed automatic weapons at her.

"They told me to stand up," said Pfeil, who suffers from post-polio syndrome and uses a wheelchair. "I told them I'm sorry. I can't stand up."

She said some weapons seized in the raid - three rifles and a shotgun - were unloaded family heirlooms belonging to Michael Corral.

Corral herself was taken to jail in her pajamas.

The bust surprised county law enforcement and word spread quickly though the medical-marijuana community.

As agents removed the plants, about 30 alliance members and their supporters gathered at a locked gate down a dirt road from the garden. Two DEA agents kept tabs on the supporters, who at times taunted the agents and sought to engage them in debate on the rights of states and the merits of medical-marijuana use.

"I'm just a worker bee," said one agent dressed in black and wearing a camouflage hat. "I wish I could solve the problem."

One caregiver carried a sign reading "We Are Not Criminals."

About 2:15 p.m., two deputies with the county Sheriff's Office arrived. The deputies sought to soothe the increasingly angry, but peaceful, gathering.

"The process you see here is a federal one," deputy Terry Moore told the crowd.

The crowd threatened to block the road in protest, but Valerie Corral, who is revered in the medical pot community, was reached by cell phone and told them to let the agents leave.

In return, the Corrals were released from jail.

As the convoy of about 10 vehicles left, including two U-Haul trucks loaded with the uprooted plants, the crowd chanted, "Shame on you." An agent dressed in camouflage looked out a passenger's side window and laughed.

Once the agents left, the crowd walked up to what was by then a bedraggled garden, and alliance members salvaged what leaves and buds they could. Amid the stems, some the diameter of a fist, Tibetan prayer flags fluttered in the wind.

The plants had grown to about 7 feet tall and were a few weeks from fully budding. The buds are the most potent part of the plant.

Alliance members even got to watch the garden's destruction via videotape in a nearby shed. A security camera had captured the action on film.

As pot smoke wafted, alliance members wondered where they would get marijuana.

"We have no other source of medicine for our patients," said George Hanamoto, a cooperative gardener and a patient.

About 80 percent of the group's members are terminally ill, said Diana Dodson, an alliance board member.

"We've lost several members this year," she said. "We lose members constantly."

The patients' stories were similar - cancer, AIDS, epilepsy.

Dan Rodriguez, an AIDS patient, said marijuana eases his nausea and boosts his appetite.

"If I don't smoke a little, I can't eat," Rodriguez said.

Like others at the garden, he said he didn't know where to turn now for marijuana.

"What are we going to do, go down to the river?" he said, referring to the San Lorenzo River levee in Santa Cruz, where illegal drug sales are a frequent problem.

Alliance member Hal Margolin agreed.

"I don't know what I will do, I really don't," Margolin said. "I wouldn't know where to go on the street. I've never done that."

The cooperative is unique in that it shares marijuana with members, but doesn't sell it. The alliance also offers hospice care and support for its members and has a months-long waiting list of applicants.

While patients were shocked and angered, the Sheriff's Office was surprised. Under the administration of Sheriff Mark Tracy, the alliance had enjoyed cooperative relations.

Sheriff's spokesman Kim Allyn said the department was not alerted to the raid in advance.

County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, whose district covers the area, said the Corrals operated in an "exemplary" fashion. She called the raid an invasion.

"I am absolutely appalled by the actions ... on the part of federal agents," Wormhoudt said.

But Valerie Corral said she knew a raid was always possible.

The DEA has repeatedly cracked down on pot clubs during the past year, enforcing federal laws that don't allow for medical use.

In February, agents seized hundreds of plants from a San Francisco club and arrested one of its suppliers, pot guru Ed Rosenthal, author of "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted."

Federal agents also raided three other cannabis clubs in California, a garden in Hollywood, and seized the records of 5,000 medical- marijuana users from a doctor's office near Sacramento.

Santa Cruz has been at the forefront of medical marijuana efforts in California and nationally.

In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a local measure ending the medical prohibition of marijuana. Four years later, state voters - including 74 percent of those in Santa Cruz - approved Proposition 215. And then again, in 2000, the City Council approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to be grown and used without a prescription.

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Tan 'n' Trends

Growin' Our Own (page 4)

Drugs and Euthanasia in The Viet Nam War and Did Nixon Blame Pot for losing the War

By: A former U.S. Army Field Medic

In 1967 as a high school prank my friend and I stole a pair of size 3 "kids" ice skates out of a car. We got busted for vehicular burglary. The judge gave us a choice, volunteer for Viet Nam or 180 days in jail. I had heard that defending yourself with a dust pan from under the jail bunk beds didn't always keep you from getting butt-fucked. I decided to join the Army and go to Viet Nam, and my friend decided to join the Air Force. So our judge used his connections with the draft board and got me into the Army and my friend into the Air Force. It was like magic as we each got our choices and were accepted into the military. I became a medic, one of the guys who tried to stop the blood, dispensed drugs, and by field triage, I decided which soldiers would live or die.

I went to boot camp, then for medic training. I was shipped off to Nam. From California I flew for 24 hours with a few stops along the way to get to Nam. Once there I was transferred out to our remote base, north of Saigon. The base name isn't important as I was just one of thousands of field medics stationed throughout Viet Nam. I met the officers and was given a Nam greeting, including smoking weed blown out of the end of a rifle barrel. Everybody wanted to be my friend.

I followed as a replacement for more than one medic who had died during battles in the field. Why did everybody like me so much? I'll tell you why. I dispensed the candy and cures for all the war and daily maladies. Need to sleep, I had the pills. Need to stay awake I had the pills and hot injections. Got the clap or VD from a 13 year old Nam whore, I usually had the cure. There was what we called incurable VD, or VD3, that nobody could cure. The soldiers who got this were sent off to isolation in something like a leper colony as there was no cure for VD3. I still believe that some of the MIAs were soldiers sent to these isolation colonies. Maybe this VD3 is what is now called aids, but I really don't know. I dispensed a lot of antibiotics for VD, as these boys and men were away from their wives and companionship needs had to be met. The Vietnamese were willing takers of our money and provided their whorehouses, weed, and best women to us.

In Nam, I gave away all kinds of drugs. I gave out speed for continued days of fighting, and extra morphine to those with injuries who couldn't make it. I was trained for this at camp and on the battlefield I was begged by my fellow soldiers to relieve their pain or send them on into the next world. In the field there was so much noise from artillery fire, whizzing bullets, choking smoke and confusion that we medics were forced to play God over life and death. Mercy killing you might call it or as I was trained, euthanasia. I'll admit that I purposely gave too much morphine to about 2% the soldiers I treated, but this was only because they were too far gone for any medical care. When you're under explosive fire and you see arteries shooting blood out, as a medic you have to make a medical decision about your fellow soldier. Is there any chance he'll make it or is there no chance? When a boy or a man gives you that look in the eyes, that final look, I knew I was there to give them their final relief. Only death can bring final relief.

There were many cases where a leg was blown off with arteries squirting blood and I didn't have enough clamps left, I knew I couldn't help. My fellow soldier was a goner anyway. Sometimes the Med-Evac choppers couldn't get to us and the wounded were just lined up with too many to care for. If they couldn't survive waiting for medical care in the field or survive a chopper ride back to the base medical chop shop, or MASH as you may know it; I gave them an extra shot of morphine to take them out of their pain, their misery, and this world. As sick as it may seem, I somehow got used to doing this. I learned to see it in a young man's eyes, when they knew they had no hope nor will to live, and wanted me to painlessly hasten their death. These were eyes that begged me, "medic, please take me out of this pain and world." I'd load up a hypodermic syringe with a certain overdose of morphine to relieve the pain, and end their suffering. I've had nightmares, too many to count, seeing the bloody faces of my fellow soldiers crying out to me for help. Nam nightmares and memories will be with me forever.

At the base and in the battlefield, I was respected by all soldiers except some of those who lost a comrade. I was respected as a soldier and medical shaman who held all the magic cures for every ailment. I was always pimped by my fellow soldiers for different drugs, and I was offered all kinds of stuff in trade. I was trusted by the Army with the perfect uppers, injectable speed, downers to relax and sleep and penicillin to get rid of the clap. I was the man sought out for all of this and more. If you fought in a 3 day battle there was no time to sleep and even the highest ranking officers would repeatedly send an aide or come to me for injections of stimulants to stay alert and hopefully to survive. If you think anybody wanted to sleep or could sleep during a multi-day battle you're dead wrong. With all the dead bodies, noise, and cries of pain it was total hell, especially for me. Night battles were the worst hell than anybody could ever imagine. Soldiers and officers were constantly calling out to me to take care of this buddy or that buddy. I operated under dark battlefield conditions as best as I could. I sometimes operated under the point of a machine gun barrel while I was threatened with death if somebody didn't survive. In reality I could only handle so many injuries and treat so many soldiers. Most of the time I was on my own as my buddies were too busy looking out for their own ass and firing back at the gooks.

The enemy had AK-47 machine guns and we had M-16s. The main difference is in the caliber of bullet. Our bullets were .223 or just a hair wider than a .22 used for shooting squirrels or plinking. The AK-47 fired a much bigger bullet than our little .223s. It was widely known that our .223s, couldn't shoot straight if the bullet grazed something like a leaf. When some little object like one leaf was hit the bullet's trajectory was deflected from its target. The AK rounds would not deflect and were better suited for jungle fights than were our small rounds. You learned to tell who was firing, (us or them) from the different sounds the rifles made, or by the color of the tracers - if it was a night fight (ours were red, Charlie's were green). Learning the sounds saved lives as you knew whether to fall in a swamp or keep moving depending on who was shooting.

A major problem in Nam was that you couldn't tell one gook from the other and most guys shot them all. Farmers in the rice paddies, people walking or riding bikes along dirt roads, jungle trials, or where ever were killed. Murdered, you might say, if it had been in civilian times. In many cases it turned out to be justified as most of the gooks didn't wear the Hanoi uniforms. All the native people of Viet Nam looked alike and you couldn't tell who was the enemy. A farmer could be carrying AK-47s, bombs or other weapons to some meeting point to aide the enemy so they were our enemy. We needed mind readers to sort out the enemy, but there were no mind readers in Nam.

Now for some cheery news. We got to go on leave to Saigon and other unknown towns. On leave we got to smoke dope, opium, or could score 90%+ pure China White heroin. I bought 'em all, to forget my nightmares and to have a personal stash at the base. There were whorehouses complete with slot machines and with beautiful young women that you couldn't believe. Everything was cheap with our dollars. My classmates from home sent me money and I sent back everything. One time I was told I was buying coke, and I had a typing clerk mail it back home to a good friend. It was officially sent with a bronze star certificate. It was as official as hell. The clerk made typing mistakes on the certificates. He told me I could use these for shipments if I could get him some correction tape or white out. The correction stuff was sent back by my friend as payment for the coke.

Later I got a letter from this friend where he told me he tried the coke and got sick vomiting all over the place. He gave it away to his friend as he was cured from his curiosity. That friend who was familiar with coke took it and tried it. He couldn't understand why nothing happened to him. He snorted more and more. Finally this stuff kicked in. His world was pulling from all sides. He then realized that the white powder wasn't coke, but was pure China White heroin. He tried to throw up but he was too paralyzed and kept this in his system. He was expecting to die from an overdose. He wrote a final note to his Mom, and went outside and buried the small bag in the dirt. Somehow he recovered, and he too was cured from any desire to experiment with chemicals. I was sorry, but I never tried the supposed coke and I didn't know it was actually heroin. The overdosed guy still brings that story up whenever I see him. It makes me feel real bad. That stuff is very dangerous and bad for you.

At the urging of a Thai stick smuggling buddy, I bought into a whorehouse. We had an American hippie style whorehouse complete with our own slot machines. I made over $100,000 from my interest in this part time business. Many guys got rich while in Nam, but the duffle bags of Thai sticks sent home to me after my return made more money than our Nam whorehouse. I bought a blue 916 Porsche and moved to Big Sur where I was a major supplier. My weed came into Ft. Ord where we had it shipped. Military transport all the way and there was no chance of a bust with military escorts. We paid off everybody. We had it down, and brought in tons of Thai sticks which we sold up and down the California coast and in San Francisco. Things eventually tightened up and by early 1971, I was a millionaire and out of the weed business.

Did Nixon Blame Pot for Losing the Viet Nam War?

It's my opinion that President Nixon blamed drug use and especially the pot smoking that infiltrated our military, as THE cause for losing the Viet Nam war. It is reported that Nixon believed that pot kept people dumb, unmotivated and poor. Pot is for the peasants. Nixon ignored reports that marijuana should be legalized, and he went the other way. In my opinion, Nixon's solution was to blame marijuana for losing the war and saw to it that it would take 100 years to legalize pot. He thought pot made us lose all incentive to fight the war and that we were just laying around getting high. Anyway action was taken in 1971 under the ruse of health and safety to outlaw marijuana. Thirty-one years later it remains unchanged. The feds still claim there is no medical or other good use for pot. They ignore studies and are stuck in time to decisions made in 1971. Maybe someday my theory will be confirmed from reading Nixon's archives of papers. Maybe this was what got erased from the 18 minutes of tape, but nobody really knows. The feds may have a wrap under national security that we can never legalize pot as our soldiers will smoke it and never win another war. Whatever the reason the feds always ignore requests to investigate and change their position about marijuana. Perhaps it was made an urgent matter of national security under the Nixon administration. The people never know what decisions are made under secrets of national security. This might explain why the DEA goes after medical users, as they may be acting under orders, cloaked by national security. It's time to change the feds attitude and bring them up to date about marijuana. Only national security determined back in 1971 would make politicians stay away from changing the feds attitude on pot. Overriding national security directives, even old ones, could label politicians as traitors. Also these secrets can't be disclosed to the people.

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Pipeline (page 4)

Wars on Drugs and Terrorism Raise Constitutional Issues

By: Jack Kenny

ONE OF THE NOTICEABLE changes since Sept. 11 is that we now speak routinely of the "war on terrorism."

Even the esteemed senator from the Roman Empire, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, has said, "The President has declared ours to be a nation at war with global terrorism." Byrd, who is something of an authority on the U.S. Constitution, knows as well as anyone that the authority to declare war resides with the Congress of the United States and not with the commander-in-chief.

This is hardly the first time the Congress has surrendered that authority to the executive branch. The last time Congress declared war was in 1941, and we have been in a few memorable "conflicts" since then. But rarely, if ever, is the war-making power claimed by the executive branch been so open-ended.

We are in a campaign to "rid the world of evil-doers," the President has told us, including who knows how many terrorist organizations in God knows how many countries. And no one yet knows how we will determine when the war is over and we may declare victory.

In the meantime, Congress has expanded the power of federal law-enforcement officials to conduct secret searches, detain aliens without charges and inspect private financial and medical records, even when there is no evidence of a crime. The justification for all this expansion of federal power is that "we are at war."

But long before the war on terrorism, America had declared a "war on drugs" that has frequently strained the tension between the procedural safeguards guaranteed all persons by the U.S. Constitution and police efforts to thwart the possession and sale of illegal drugs. A recent ruling by the New Hampshire Supreme Court has highlighted some of the issues involved in prosecuting that "war."

The case involved Londonderry High School student Joseph Heirtzler, who was observed by his science teacher passing what appeared to be a folded piece of tinfoil to another student. The student removed something from the tinfoil, put it in a piece of cellophane and passed the tinfoil back to Heirtzler. The teacher informed Michael Bennette, the Londonderry police officer assigned to the school, who passed the matter on to assistant principal James O'Neill.

O'Neill and another assistant principal, Robert Shaps, then called Heirtzler into the office for questioning. When they asked if they could search him, the student complied. They then found a piece of paper wrapped in tinfoil in the student's cigarette pack. When Heirtzler told them, after further questioning, that the piece of paper might be LSD, O'Neill turned the matter back to Officer Bennette for a criminal investigation. Heirtzler was charged with possession and distribution of a controlled drug.

The evidence was suppressed in trial court on the grounds that the principal and his assistant were acting as agents of the police during their interrogation and search of Heirtzler. In so doing, Judge Patricia Coffey ruled, they violated procedural safeguards guaranteed criminal suspects by the New Hampshire Constitution. The ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court by the state's attorney general.

"A warrantless search is presumptively illegal and the prosecution has the burden of establishing that it falls within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement," associate Justice John Broderick wrote in the 4-0 ruling. (Associate Justice James Duggan, former head of the state's public defenders appellate program, did not participate.) "The acquisition of evidence by an individual acting as an agent of the police must be reviewed by the same constitutional standards that govern law-enforcement officials."

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