$2.7m drugs haul puts harvester out to grass

By DAVID HAY in Los Angeles

A marijuana activist who says he has suffered 10 bouts of cancer
since he was 10 is claiming the 4,000 plants found in and around
his Bel Air, Los Angeles, home were for medicinal purposes only.

Late on Tuesday, a convoy of police cars sped through Bel Air,
halting outside the gold and black wroughtiron gate of a towering
hillside mansion.

Inside the home, nicknamed Liberty Castle, police discovered the
plants. News footage revealed rows of them covering the mansion's
hilltop garden, lining the stairs to the front door, while others
grew in the bathroom or were used as indoor decoration.

Parts of the mansion had been converted into laboratories where
small plastic plant holders were marked carefully, with each
plant's origin and type designated. Police estimate that this
greenleafed plantation had a market value of well over $US2
million ($2.7 million). Before the night was over authorities had
arrested the tenant, Todd McCormick, 27, and his girlfriend, Tracy
Newman.

A smiling Sherman Block, the rotund Sheriff of Los Angeles County,
disputed McCormick's claims that this multimillion dollar stash
of pot was not being readied for sale. Many of the plants had been
tagged with the names of marijuana buyers' clubs around
California, he said.

McCormick, who paid $US6,000 a month to lease this Bel Air
mansion, a bargain by Los Angeles standards, remained in Los
Angeles County jail on Wednesday, fighting to have his bail of
$US1 million lowered. After the marijuana was discovered,
authorities removed it and later burned it. Newman told reporters
the marijuana growing at Liberty Castle was solely for medical
purposes.

"Haven't you studied the laws of this State?" she asked reporters
as she escorted them through a mansion now emptied of its
potential harvest.

Newman was referring to Proposition 215, passed by California
voters last November. This initiative, now being challenged in
court by the State Government and the Clinton Administration,
allows marijuana to be dispensed with a medical prescription. It
also allows those with a prescription to grow enough marijuana to
meet their medical needs.

McCormick edits a magazine titled Hemp Life and donated funds to
the campaign for Proposition 215. His lawyer said his client had
endured 10 bouts of cancer since he was 10 years old and needed
marijuana to alleviate painful sideeffects.