San Francisco ? “Liar! Liar!” came the voices from the crowd.

Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Asa Hutchinson stopped short, caught midsentence. He had started by saying: “Science has told us so far there is no medical benefit for smoking marijuana …”

Hutchinson pushed on with his message, reiterating President Bush’s newly aggressive anti-drug policy, which links casual drug use to terrorism and objects to state laws like California’s that allow the medicinal use of marijuana.

Just hours before Hutchinson’s appearance Feb. 12, federal agents with no help from San Francisco police seized more than 600 pot plants from a medicinal marijuana club. They also arrested the group’s executive director and three suppliers, including pot guru Ed Rosenthal, author of “Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don’t Get Busted.”

The federal raids have angered and alarmed local officials in San Francisco.

On the day Hutchinson spoke, a half-dozen city officials joined a boisterous street protest against the DEA. Even Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan grabbed a bullhorn and criticized the raids, as demonstrators, some in wheelchairs and on crutches, chanted, “DEA, Go away!” and marijuana smoke wafted through the air.

Opponents of Washington’s stand on marijuana said the raids may be a precursor to showdowns in at least seven other states that have also passed laws in conflict with the federal ban on marijuana.

DEA spokesman Richard Meyers in San Francisco countered: “You know, personally my heart goes out to someone who has cancer or AIDS, and I’m sure they’re just trying to alleviate their pain, but federal law does not make a distinction between medical marijuana and marijuana, and the DEA has a commitment and duty to the public to enforce the law.”

For nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that there is no medical exception to the federal law against marijuana, federal agents had avoided San Francisco.

Now that the United States is facing unprecedented challenges to homeland security, Hutchinson said the time is right to crack down on drugs.

“History teaches us that in a time of national emergency, and we have seen that since Sept. 11, a nation’s moral values are clarified,” he said during a recent debate with New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who advocates legalizing marijuana.