County Will Test Prop. 215 With Cannabis CoOp Worker
Law: David L. Herrick faces marijuana charges. He says he uses the drug
to alleviate disc pain and has a doctor's note.
By LEE ROMNEY, Times Staff Writer

SANTA ANAThe Orange County district attorney's office has filed the
county's first drug case challenging the power of Proposition 215the
measure that allows people with certain illnesses to grow and use marijuana
with a doctor's approval.
David Lee Herrick, 47, was arrested outside the Santa Ana motel room
where he helped run the Orange County Cannabis Coop.
Officers approached Herrick with a felony arrest warrant from San
Bernardino Countywhere he had allegedly violated probation on a marijuana
offense that predated Proposition 215. When they entered his room, they
found coop literature and seven bags of marijuana marked with the group's
logo and stamped "Not for sale. For medicinal use only."
The coop was formed after the passage of the state initiative to
provide marijuana to people who produce a doctor's note, and to inform users
of their rights.
Prosecutors have charged Herrick with felony possession of marijuana
for sale. He is scheduled to appear in Superior Court this month, said Carl
Armbrust, head of the district attorney's narcotics unit.
Armbrust said he has been looking for a Proposition 215 test case since
the measure passed in November.
Matt Ross, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office, said
several other cases are being prosecuted in Northern California, one of
those against the person taking care of a patient.
In addition, the attorney general's office is litigating a case before
an appellate court that explores whether the law allows a cannabis buyers'
club, such as Orange County's coop, to sell marijuana. "We have taken
the position that Prop. 215 does not provide for a club to sell to patients,"
Ross said.
However, Dave Fratello, spokesman for the Santa Monicabased Americans
for Medical Rights, which ran the campaign for Proposition 215, said he
knows of more cases where prosecutors opted not to file charges after
learning that the defendant had a physician's note.
The Los Angeles city attorney's office in March dropped a marijuana
possession case against a man suffering from AIDS whose use of the drug was
acknowledged by his doctor. In Orange County, prosecutors opted not to file
charges in January against a sicklecell anemia patient who had a similar
note.
In that case, the woman was carrying only a small amount for her personal
use.
State legislation has been proposed that would make it easier for sick
people to buy marijuana for medicinal purposes, so they could avoid
backalley dealers and buyers' clubs.
Herrick carries a membership card for the Orange County Cannabis Coop,
he said in a telephone interview from the Orange County Jail, and uses the
drug to alleviate pain from a herniated disc. A "physician statement" signed
on a form letter provided by the Coop says that his doctor has "no
objection to
her/him using cannabis/marijuana for this purpose."
He also volunteers with the coop, helping to confirm members'
physician notes and provide them with marijuana for whatever donation they
can afford to give, he said.
Armbrust said he believes the "physician's statement" provided by the
group will not hold up in court.
"It's not a defense to have a doctor simply say, 'I don't object if he
uses it,' because it's not the doctor who's objecting, it's the state of
California that's objecting," he said.
Armbrust said Herrick told officers the drug was "not for sale, but he
says he accepts a $20 donation." That, to Armbrust, constitutes possession
for sale.
Designed to decriminalize marijuana use for patients suffering from
AIDSrelated wasting syndrome, chemotherapyrelated nausea and muscle
spasms, among other ailments, Proposition 215 has left some feeling more
uncertain of their rights.
The measure has caused confusion as federal officials threatened to
crack down on doctors recommending marijuana. While the law decriminalizes
possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal use if the patient has
the "recommendation or approval" of a physician, it does nothing to protect
distributors of marijuana or guide users to a legitimate source of the drug.
That weakness may prove harmful to Herrick's case, said Fratello.
"If you charge them under a section like felony possession for sale,
it's quite possible that the person wouldn't be protected," he said.
Herrick, who used to run a head shop in Hesperia that sold
marijuanarelated paraphernalia, said he did not oppose his May 18 arrest on
the felony warrant, or the search of his motel room. But he said the officers
should have respected his membership card from the coop and his doctor's
note.
"They're not honoring us as a buyers' club," he said from jail. "We
were running our operation out of that room. I showed the officer all the
literature."
While Herrick said he recognized a "test case" of Proposition 215 was
necessary, he pointed out that buyers' clubs are the only way to get safe
marijuana to sick people for a reasonable price.
"We have a law that's been passed by 56% of the voters of this state,"
he said. "No one in the government has taken any move whatsoever to move
this out of the hands of the buyers' clubs and into the hands of a medical
facility, so how are these patients supposed to get their weed?"

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