cannabisnews.com: 6 years for Orange County Pot Club Founder!





6 years for Orange County Pot Club Founder!
Posted by FoM on January 29, 1999 at 15:26:41 PT

WESTMINSTER, Calif.The founder of an Orange County medical cannabis club was sentenced today to six years in state prison for selling marijuana to undercover officers and mailing pot to a cancer patient. 
Marvin Chavez, who says he uses marijuana to ease the pain of an old back injury, was immediately remanded into custody by Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Borris. He winced as a bailiff cuffed his hands behind a back brace protruding under his sport coat. His attorney said he would appeal. ``His motivation is to help others in pain,'' said defense attorney J. David Nick. A jury convicted Chavez in November of two felony counts of selling marijuana and a felony charge that he mailed 5 ounces to a patient in Chino. Other charges that he gave the drug to caregivers for patients were reduced to misdemeanors, and the judge gave him suspended sentences. However, the six-year term includes two years for flouting the law by mailing the marijuana while Chavez, 42, was free on his own recognizance. Prosecutor Carl Armbrust maintained that Chavez, founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op, was nothing more than a sophisticated street pusher, using Proposition 215, the state's new medical marijuana law, as a front. The measure, passed in 1996, legalized the possession, cultivation and use of cannabis for medical purposes, but not its sale. Armbrust acknowledged that Chavez gave away marijuana, but said he did it only as a come-on for customers. ``This is good business, no doubt about it,'' he said. Chavez sold the leaf for about $55 an ounce, according to Armbrust. An ounce of high-quality marijuana sells for about $600 in the Los Angeles area. Westminster is about 30 miles south of the city's downtown. Chavez said he was trying to create a ``white market'' for marijuana because it was so expensive to buy clandestinely. ``I'm here to obey the law as a citizen. I don't endorse no illegal activity or drug abuse,'' Chavez said. His attorney said he gave marijuana to cancer sufferers, AIDS patients and others in need, accepting only donations in return. Borris threatened to clear a courtroom filled with at least 20 Chavez supporters when their grumbles rose at Armbrust's allegations. ``Marijuana is still an illicit drug in the United States, and California is part of the United States,'' he told the judge. ``He's from another era,'' Dion Markgraaff, a San Diego marijuana activist, said afterward of the prosecutor. ``He's from the industrial death era. We're going into the era that projects life.'' Armbrust declined to give his age. He retired shortly after trying the case and returned to work only for sentencing. Chavez turned down a deal to plead guilty in return for a sentence of days rather than years. ``If he was really getting all that money from drug dealing, he would be in a mansion right now,'' said his wife, Linda Chavez. ``He doesn't even own a car,'' she said. 
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