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WAMM Sues for Return of Pot
September 24, 2002
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Wo/Men's seeks return of pot
By BRIAN SEALS
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
As promised, attorneys for a local medical marijuana cooperative
whose garden was raided by federal agents Sept. 5 will be in court
today to try to get its pot plants back.
Ben Rice and Gerald Uelmen, attorneys for the Wo/Men's Alliance for
Medical Marijuana, plan to file a motion this morning in U.S.
District Court in San Jose. A hearing date will be set after the
motion is filed.
The motion will seek the return of at least 130 marijuana plants
seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as personal items
belonging to alliance co-founders Mike and Valerie Corral that were
taken during the raid, attorneys said. The U.S. Attorneys Office has
not filed criminal charges against the Corrals, and has not said
whether any are planned.
Rice said he and Uelmen plan to attack the agency's probable cause
for getting a search warrant. He said the affidavit shows that
probable cause was based on viewing the alliance's Web site and on a
fly-over of the Davenport property where the garden was located.
"I just don't know how they could justify that search," Rice said Monday.
DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said he could not speak to specifics of
the case. But he said the agency would fight returning the marijuana
in any case.
"We're not a marijuana distribution center," Meyer said. "We seize drugs."
In some California cases, state courts have ordered the return of
medical marijuana to its owners. Meyer said he was not aware of that
happening in the federal court system.
The raid reverberated through the Golden State's medical marijuana
community and drew criticism from local elected officials.
It also sparked a medical pot giveaway to about a dozen of WAMM's
members last Friday on the steps of City Hall in a move that drew
national media attention. The distribution was endorsed by six of
Santa Cruz's seven City Council members, three former mayors and a
county supervisor, all of whom attended the event.
While California voters approved medical marijuana use in 1996, the
federal government still considers it a drug with no medical value.
Rice said more legal action on behalf of the alliance would be
forthcoming in the form of a lawsuit against the DEA.
"This is only our first salvo," Rice said of the motion to be filed today.
Contact Brian Seals at bseals@santa-cruz.com
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Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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