DdC

DEA Raids MMJ Garden of L.A. Patient Sister Somayah October 10, 2003


Sister Somayah & Richard Davis of the Hemp Museum
Million Marijuana March In L.A., 2003
Photo By zensa_dc@yahoo.com

California NORML Press Release Oct 10, 2003

Los Angeles, Oct 8, 2003 - In a resumption of the federal government's war on medical marijuana, DEA agents raided the backyard garden of a well known Los Angeles patient advocate, Sister Somayah Kambui, who was acquitted in a high-profile Prop 215 jury trial last year.

Somayah, who uses marijuana to treat severe pain from sickle-cell anemia and runs a sickle-cell patients' group from her home, has been the target of repeated police raids by the LAPD despite her legal status under Prop. 215.

This time, it was DEA agents who destroyed her garden, taking away a dozen robust plants nearly ready for harvest. No charges have been filed so far. "This is straight up piracy, thievery," declared Somayah, "we just want to be left in peace."

California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer denounced the raid as a "mean-spirited, gratuitous attack on a seriously ill woman who has been judged guiltless by her peers under California law."

He charges that the raid was politically motivated. "Somayah's garden was peanuts by federal standards," he says, "Like other victims of DEA's medical marijuana raids, Somayah was targeted because she was a vocal, legal patient activist who was a thorn in the side of the law enforcement establishment." Over the past two years, the DEA has repeatedly picked on high-profile medical cannabis patients and activists.

Other targets have included Lynn and Judy Osburn and the directors of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, who are currently awaiting sentencing in federal court; Steve McWilliams of the Shelter from the Storm Collective in San Diego, whose conviction is currently under federal appeal; and Ann and Gary Barrett of San Bernardino County, who have fought a series of battles in state court.

Over 40 legal medical marijuana patients and providers have been raided by federal agents: for a list, see: canorml.org/news...fedmmjcases.h tml

In recent days, California NORML has heard reports of other DEA raids on patient collectives in Northern California. So far, no charges have been filed. Observers speculate that local police have been calling on the DEA to take down patients' gardens in order to circumvent state law.

Unsure of whether she will be criminally charged, Somayah is pondering her next step. Meanwhile, other patient advocates are challenging the DEA raids in federal court. In a case heard before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 7th, Angel Raich and Diane Monson are seeking a federal injunction to ban the DEA from taking their gardens. Another similar appeal by the Wo/Men' Alliance for Medical Marijuana and the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative was heard by the Ninth Circuit last month.

Gieringer denounced the Department of Justice for waging a "shameful and cowardly" attack on California's medical marijuana law. "The DEA is wasting more effort on medical marijuana patients than on major drug dealers or terrorists in California," he charges. "By attacking known, legitimate Prop. 215 patients, the DEA is only increasing the market for dangerous criminal dealers and smugglers."

Dale Gieringer (415) 563-5858 // canorml@igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114

canorml

Osburn Defense Fund

The Murder of Peter McWilliams * Archives
Cartoon: Murder of Peter McWilliams

Rainbow Farm Massacre

Hypocrisy & Double Standards

Statewide billboard campaign against federal war on medical marijuana
featuring 8-year-old daughter of MMJ prisoner Bryan Epis.



Relief in Pill Form By Mari Kane
Source: North Bay Bohemian October 10, 2003

Beckie Nikkel does not consider herself a "sufferer" of multiple sclerosis because she has learned to deal with the disease by taking control of the medicine she takes. Five years ago, the 50-year-old Santa Rosa grandmother was taking a dozen different meds, some to counteract the side effects of others, and her next step would have been to use a baclofen pump to stop the muscle spasms, which would have rendered her legs useless. That's when she turned to cannabis and became active with the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana. In late September, she joined a convocation of activist organizations in Washington, D.C., to lobby congress and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society about cannabis.

"I used to use a vaporizer, but now I do more ingesting of cannabis nectars and candy," she says, referring to THC-laden pops distributed privately. "Those suckers work wonders, but I would love to have other natural options, especially if they were covered by insurance."
Continued...cannabis news.com...17523.sht ml

The Harsh Taste of Progress October 10, 2003

Patients Out of Time
While the DEAth harasses and kills sick people... they also grow, roll and ship joints to the remaining patients in a federal medical marijuana program. Such Hypocrisy...

Cliarence Can't Find It?



HARVEST TIME: YEP!!! IT'S THE DEA THIS TIME THOUGH

Did you ever notice how the police usually show up at harvest time? News photographs of police in the mountains carrying these big hemp trees? 2003 is another year when the police came to Sister Somayah's house to collect her most recent crop in full bloom. Sister Somayah is known for growing 4 crops per year in Los Angeles, one block from the Coliseum.

Sister Somayah Found NOT GUILTY on 15 Medical Hemp Charges

On March 18, 2002 Sister Somayah was found not guilty on all 15 counts of hemp charges. The L.A.P.D. was told hands off by the court. All summer the helicopters flew over her backyard, possibly to see how the plants were coming. So this year the D.E.Acame in.

On Thursday, October 8, 2003 Sister Somayah called and said she was the victim of a home invasion by the D.E.A. They pulled guns on her, took her hemp plants, her medicine, and put her in jail for about an hour and a half. She said the officers who drove her home gave her a hug. Of course they did. They harvested the best backyard crop in Los Angeles.

It was the day Tommy Chong went to jail for selling pipes on line. In balance, it was the day before Rush Limbaugh, who had called repeatedly for the conviction and incarceration of drug users, confessed his addiction to and large purchases of prescription drugs. We live in interesting times.

Sister Somayah is home and preparing to announce Los Angeles' participation in the 2004 Million Marijuana March. She has also begun work to reclaim her plants from the D.E.A., save her home, settle the insurance claim for the L.A.P.D.'s theft of her plants and continue to pray. Since she doesn't sell what she grows, she has to manage all she's doing on her Veterans Benefits check, which is small. She shares her plants at no charge with people dealing with Sickle Cell and other illness that hemp helps.

The D.EA. took her computer so if you need to reach her, call her at 323-232-0935. Her e-mail is still sistersomayah@yahoo. com . She has been fighting this 'free the holy hemp' battle for decades and could use some help right about now.

Tell the new California governor to come to Sister Somayah's aid.



BALANCE THE BUDGET WITH HEMP TAX REVENUES

Open the commerce gates to hemp products, California's number one cash crop, and balance the budget with hemp tax revenues. It's already been voted legal in the state of California, Prop 215, which Sister Somayah was instrumental in getting voted in.

California just needs a governor who is going to stand up against the federal government and let the will of the people supercede the will of the government. Free the people from the oppression of the federal government and let the healing, jobs, businesses and environmental solutions flow.

Ganja/hemp lnfolinx

DdC

The murder of Ashley
by Pete Brady (08 Oct, 2003)

DEA agents shoot innocent 14-year-old girl in the head, but deny any wrongdoing.

Excerpted: ((( After Danny was in the car, Ashley slowly began to drive around the block. As she drove near the home of her best friends Kayla and Pamela Hernandez, a few houses from where her grandmother lived, Ashley noticed she was being too closely followed by a large unmarked vehicle that did not have its lights on.

"Ashley didn't know what was going on," Danny Robles told me. "She put on her right turn signal to go onto Motes street. She just wanted to get out of their way."

Suddenly, several unmarked vehicles converged on the Eclipse from all sides, forcing the car to a halt near the intersection of Motes and San Joaquin, within sight of Ashley's home.

"They sandwiched the car so we had to stop," Robles said. "Then they started shooting. I thought we were getting attacked by gang members. I tried to shield Ashley but I could tell right away she had been hit. She whispered my name. I felt her shaking and could see she had a hole in her head. Look what they did to poor Ashley. And then these men get out of their cars and come at us, and we are out of the car and on the ground, and she is moaning and crying. I see chunks of her head; her face had turned purple and blue. I was covered in her blood. She was dying and wanted me to hold her. I said to one of the men, 'Please let me hold her, she's going.'
He stomped his foot hard on my back and said, 'Don't move.'")))



Archives...

Woman Wins Medical Pot Case by John L. Mitchell
Pubdate: Tues 19 Mar 2002
Pubsource: Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES: A woman who said she grew marijuana to treat the effects of sickle-cell anemia was acquitted of several drug charges Monday despite overwhelming evidence that her personal stash was for more than medical use.

Police testified that they found more than 200 pounds of marijuana plants in Somayah Kambui's backyard when she was arrested Oct. 5. They believed she was using her medical condition as a ruse to run a distribution operation out of her South Los Angeles house.

Also seized were six pounds of marijuana in large glasses, an additional 13 pounds in packaging, 34 marijuana cookies, 32 small brown vials of hash oil, and a pot on the stove with three liters of oil. But after six days of testimony, a Superior Court jury spent only three hours deliberating before finding Kambui, 51, not guilty on all five counts.

"The evidence was clear that it was a violation of the law," said a disappointed Sean M. Carney, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Kambui. "But she is a very sympathetic figure. She does have sickle-cell anemia, and the jury, I think, gave a nullification verdict."
Continued...masscann .org...03_19_2002_b. htm

Nazism or WoD
DEAth Store
Ashcrofts Agenda

MED-POT ACTIVIST SISTER SOMAYAH KAMBUI IN HOT WATER AGAIN
by Peter Gorman
LOS ANGELES — The trial of medical-marijuana activist Sister Somayah Kambui, who was arrested in October 2001 for growing dozens of plants in her back yard near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, began Jan. 18.



Subject: HT: Sister Somayah Update
Sun, 17 Feb 2002
From: kevin@hemp.net

This is a forward from the Compassionate Moms list. (2002)
Kevin

Sister Somayah went into the hospital Friday with her sickle cell anemia since she has been arrested for growing medical marijuana, apparently denied its use pending trial, and they have her on morphine instead of pot! Will she die as a result of this illegal prosecution like Peter McWilliams?

Somayah has been in the West LA VA hospital before for treatment for this condition. Why does the law push her towards hard narcotics like morphine for treatment instead of medical cannabis/marijuana which serves her better?

We need to make a bigger deal out of her case! Governor Davis has let down the medical marijuana patients of California by not defending their rights per Prop215, not only against the Feds on this issue but here in Somayah's case under State law. Should he get re-elected Governor of California this November?

In 1998 Somayah was busted for 35plants and in later court victory (under 215) the cops had to give her plants back. This time they busted her growing 32 plants and have added bogus charges under drug-house (crack-house) laws and other charges including for hash-oil knowing that she was just pressing hempseed oil, for therapeutic medical value to help her immune system.

She has a public defender who doesn't know squat about this issue and reports for trial slated to begin Feb.28 under CA STATE charges, not federal, in spite of CA prop215.

In the middle of the night of her bust with dark figures in her backyard in South Central LA she made a recorded 911 call saying she and her plants were legal. She said the 911 operator said they knew she was legal but it was the cops outside right then tearing out her plants!

A search of the LA Times website today by Somayah yielded no results and the article at below original Times url is no longer posted there. What gives? Expunged by the Times? Because she is a medical patient or a South Central LA African American woman involved as a teenager with the Black Panthers?

Solution or Problem?

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, 1950

The Tribunal of US Drug War Crimes * Poster

__________________

patriot

And the Fourth Reich!!!!

Good to see our tax dollars going to protect us against those dangerous marijuana smokers.

__________________
A true patriot is always ready to stand up against his own government.

We can't be using plants that come from the Lord for beneficial purposes. Now hurry up, or we'll be late for church.

The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.-Adolf Hitler

Legalizing marijuana won't grow our economy-Barack Hussein Obama 2009