Pubdate: Wed, 10 Nov 1999
Date: 11/10/1999
Source: Orange County Weekly (CA)
Author: Rick Root

To the editor:

I was thrilled to see you place Libertarians! Libertarians!
Libertarians! in the No. 114 position of your Best of OC 2,000 Guilty
Pleasures list (Oct. 22).

When I saw the following week that you were listing OC's 31 Scariest
People (Oct. 29), I was hoping to get yet another thrill and see
Republicans! Republicans! Republicans! and Democrats! Democrats!
Democrats! But I was disappointed. I just can't understand how you
could leave off those who condone the arrest, property confiscation
and personal incarceration of sick and dying people who choose to
exercise their rights as granted by the passage of Proposition 215.

By the way, Nov. 2 was the three-year anniversary of the passage of
the Compassionate Use Act. Three years later, the Democrats and
Republicans in power still say, "So what! Let them pay my contributors
in the prescription-drug lobby . . . er, I mean . . . eat cake!"

RICK ROOT
Westminster

DEAR RICK: We agree, which is why we listed recently retired deputy
district attorney Carl Armbrust as the 14th scariest person in Orange
County. We don't know anything about Armbrust's political
affiliations--and frankly don't care--but we can tell you this: he was
individually responsible for using undercover officers posing as sick
patients (complete with legal-looking doctor's notes) to bust two
high-profile members of the Orange County Patient/ Doctor/Nurse
Support Group in the past year. It was a clearly political act, one
designed to undermine Prop. 215. The good news: a judge recently
overturned one of those convictions. Thanks for giving us the chance
to publish the entire sordid story a third time.