August 15, 1998

By Carol Ness OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

PERON’S POT PLANTS UPROOTED

Replanting planned instead of harvest in Lake County

For a second time, federal drug agents have busted a Lake County pot plantation run by San Francisco medical marijuana crusader Dennis Peron.

About 20 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration swooped in and seized 151 marijuana plants at 7:30 a.m. Friday, just before a weekend open house planned to show off the Lake County Cannabis Farm in Lower Lake, according to Peron and a DEA spokeswoman.

Peron and nine others were detained during the two-hour seizure, but were not arrested, according to Evelyn James of the DEA’s San Francisco office. A prosecutor will decide whether any charges are warranted, she said.

Peron has been arrested four times since he launched his campaign to pass Proposition 215, which allows medical patients to grow and use marijuana, with a doctor’s recommendation, to ease the suffering caused by AIDS, cancer and other illnesses.

He said Friday he had hoped to be arrested again because "we want our day in court."

Federal authorities say U.S. drug laws still prohibit having or growing marijuana, and supersede state laws like Prop. 215. They have gone aggressively after Peron and other purveyors of medical marijuana, getting a court order that eventually shut down Peron’s Cannabis Healing Center in San Francisco.

Since his own pot buyers’ club was shut, Peron has been concentrating on his 20-acre plot in Lake County, a two-hour drive northeast of San Francisco. He said it was a cooperative of 100 or more AIDS, cancer and other patients who took turns growing the pot for their own use, as allowed under Prop. 215.

The DEA busted it for the first time in May, confiscating 250 plants and several pounds of processed pot.

The public was invited to the farm this weekend to show that despite the federal onslaught, "Prop. 215 did do something, and that sick and dying people can cultivate medicine free of prosecution, from the state and county in any case," Peron said Friday.

With the bust, he said the federal government is "trying to discourage people into thinking Prop. 215 didn’t change anything and they can shove their heavy hand down the people’s throat."

Lake County Sheriff Rodney Mitchell, who sent a detective along with the federal agents Friday, said a bust just before the weekend celebration just meant more publicity for the farm.

(Ed. note: Dennis Peron is one of the few people in America who can afford to trade marijuana for publicity.)

"I think that the end result was, they accomplished what they expected and wanted," Mitchell said. "Otherwise, why would they fax me a copy (of the press release announcing the open house)? Why would they fax the DEA one? Why would they put it on their Web site, which the DEA monitors every day?"

Peron said the celebration would go ahead, with people from all over Northern California bringing pot plants to replace those ripped out. "We are going to have 200 patients up here," he said. "Instead of a harvest party, it’s going to be a planting party."