Marijuana Club Members Support Four Arrested Activists

Members of two Southland medicinal marijuana clubs are throwing their support behind four activists who were arrested last week when authorities raided a ranch in northern Ventura County and seized 342 pot plants.

Two couples, Lynn and Judy Osburn, 50 and 47, and Mark Davison and Carol Jo Papac, 28 and 50, were taken into custody Friday after an investigation uncovered the growing operation in Lockwood Valley, authorities said.

The four, all of whom made bail late Friday night, are members of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative, an organization that supplies marijuana for more than 800 medicinal users, cooperative leaders said.

They “need the support of the entire movement to prevail,” said Scott Imler, president of the cooperative, in a letter to members. “This represents a significant portion of our annual supply and patients are already suffering for the loss.”

In addition to the cooperative, Andrea Nagy, the former owner of a Thousand Oaks cannabis club who continues to dispense pot to patients after reaching a settlement with prosecutors in February, planned to meet with the four to lend her support, sources said.

Eric Nishimoto, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, said the activists “are making claims they are doing all of this for these clubs. All we care about is that it’s not legal, and they broke the law.”

Cannabis club members expect the arrests to be the start of another legal challenge to strict restrictions that have been placed on medicinal users since the voter-approved Proposition 215.

The 1996 law allows seriously ill people to use pot to treat a wide range of symptoms, if they have permission from a doctor.

But court challenges have arisen because there are no set guidelines for how much marijuana a person can grow or where it can be obtained.

In a Simi Valley case decided last week, a Superior Court jury unanimously agreed that police had acted properly when they arrested retiree Rex Dean Jones, who is a legal user, for growing 14 plants in his backyard.

The Osburns, who live in Kern County, were active supporters of Prop. 215 and have written the book “Green Gold the Tree of Life,” a history of pot use in major religions.

Lynn Osburn beat a similar case in 1988 after he was arrested and charged with growing 200 pot plants in northern Ventura County.