Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko

in America—the use of heavy-handed paramilitary raids to send a political message. When the DEA began raiding marijuana suppliers in California, and then also in the states that subsequently legalized the drug, they generally raided suspects who were either well-known supporters of pot or people who they believed had enormous supplies of the drug. The latter were people runningbusinesses, operating openly under state law. Many of them had obtained business licenses and permits, as well as permission from local law enforcement. These were not dangerous people. The use of tactical teams and frightening raids to shut down medical marijuana suppliers in California was about sending a clear, unambiguous message to other pot suppliers around the state: openly defy the federal government, and you can expect the blunt force of federal power to be brought down upon you.
    One of those early raids was on a medical marijuana farm run by Todd McCormick and Peter McWilliams in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air. Both men had become advocates of the drug after using it to treat symptoms of their own serious illnesses. McCormick smoked pot to treat the pain associated with a cancer treatment that had fused two of his vertebrae. McWilliams had both AIDS and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma brought on by AIDS. Smoking marijuana relieved his nausea, which helped him keep down the medication he took both to manage his AIDS and during his chemotherapy for the cancer. McWilliams was also a self-help author, and had become an outspoken civil liberties activist. With respect to pot, he made no attempt to hide the fact that while it was saving his life, it also made him feel good. The pot helped him keep down his medicine, dulled the pain associated with his conditions, and took his mind off the fact that he was suffering from them.
    None of that was enough to get McCormick and McWilliams out from under the boot of the federal government. McWilliams describes the first moments of the raid:
A hard pounding on the door accompanied by shouts of “Police! Open up!” broke the silence, broke my reverie, and nearly broke down the door. I opened the door wearing standard writer’s attire, a bathrobe, and was immediately handcuffed. I was taken outside while Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents ran through my house, guns drawn, commando-style. They were looking, I suppose, for the notorious, well-armed, highly trained Medical Marijuana Militia. To the DEA, I am the Godfather of the Medicine Cartel. Finding nothing, they took me back into my home, informed me I was not under arrest, and ordered me—still in handcuffs—to sit down. I was merely being “restrained,” I was told, so the DEA could “enforce the search warrant.” 56
    The two men were unquestionably growing marijuana—the police found some four thousand plants. The entire operation was legal under California law, but because they were brought up on federal charges and tried in federal court, a jury wouldn’t be allowed to hear anything about California law. McWilliams was also barred from telling the jury that, according to his doctors, marijuana was keeping him alive.
    Because all of that information would be kept from any potential jury, McWilliams really had no choice but to plead guilty and hope for leniency. After his arrest, McWilliams’s mother put her house up as collateral to help post his bail. One of the conditions of McWilliams’s bail was that he refrain from smoking marijuana. Federal prosecutors told McWilliams’s mother that if he failed a drug test or was caught with even a trace of pot in his possession, they’d take her house. So to protect his mother, McWilliams refrained from using the drug.
    He died before he could be sentenced. McWilliams was found dead in his apartment on June 14, 2000. Overcome with nausea, he had choked and aspirated on his own vomit. Tributes popped up all over the political spectrum—conservative icon and pot champion William F.