DISPENSARY RAIDS SLAMMED

DEA: An Official Confirms the Agency Is Conducting a Large-Scale
Inquiry of the Sites.

RIVERSIDE - Medical-marijuana users rallied Wednesday outside the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration building in downtown Riverside to
protest the agency's recent raids on 13 Southern California marijuana
dispensaries.

Federal agents seized large quantities of marijuana, records and small
amounts of psychedelic mushrooms and hashish from the San Diego-area
dispensaries on Monday. No dispensaries in Riverside or San Bernardino
counties were raided.

Misha Piastro, a DEA special agent in San Diego, called Monday's sweep
a part of one of the administration's most comprehensive
investigations in California history. He said the investigation is in
its infancy.

"In many cases, we sent in undercover agents who purchased marijuana
without providing documentation of any sort," Piastro said. "This was
drug trafficking."

Protesters said they are worried the raids are a signal the federal
government intends to aggressively challenge a California law that
allows the cultivation and use of medicinal marijuana with a
physician's recommendation.

The California law is at odds with a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme
Court that people who smoke marijuana with a doctor's permission could
still be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws.

Oscar Lorigo, 31, of Palm Desert, said he uses marijuana for insomnia
after trying to treat his sleeplessness with liquor and pharmaceutical
drugs that left him hung over or groggy the next day.

Lorigo, one of about 20 protesters, said the federal government should
be focused on fighting crime and not patients who need their medicine.

While Riverside County began taking applications Dec. 1 for state
medical-marijuana identification cards, San Diego County has refused
to participate in the state-mandated card program.

The San Bernardino County Public Health Department next month plans to
begin implementing an ID-card program.