ACTOR HARRELSON MAY BAIL OUT POT ACTIVIST.

Byline: Theresa Moreau Daily News Staff Writer

Hemp activist and Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson has agreed to post the $500,000 needed to bail a medicinal-marijuana activist out of federal jail, a federal official said Wednesday.

But a few legal hurdles need to be jumped before authorities can accept bail for Todd McCormick, an outspoken proponent of Proposition 215 who was arrested July 29 with 4,116 pot plants growing in his rented Bel-Air home.

``I heard McCormick's lawyers have been waving around a cashiers check downstairs - the result of some action taken by Woody Harrelson,'' said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

``But, a number of terms and conditions must be met first, and we're trying to set up a meeting where we can speak with Mr. Harrelson,'' Mrozek said. ``We're not making any comment on the meat or the substance of our discussion between our lawyers and his lawyers.''

Harrelson last year planted four hemp seeds in Kentucky - a deliberate, public challenge to state law that makes no distinction between marijuana and industrial hemp used for clothing. Last month, a circuit court judge in Lee County, Ky., ruled that the law was unconstitutional.

The 27-year-old McCormick has said he was growing the marijuana to treat pain from cancer and to research ways to cultivate a strain specifically used for medicinal purposes. He has asserted he is protected by California's ballot initiative Proposition 215, which allows people to use pot for therapy if they have a doctor's recommendation.

McCormick's lawyer said in an interview Wednesday that Harrelson may be the one to post the bail for McCormick, but that could change.

``We are a long way to putting the bond together and meeting the conditions of release,'' said Alan Isaacman, famed First Amendment attorney for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.

Among those conditions could be a video teleconference with the person signing the bond, if that person is out of the country. According to his publicist, Harrelson is currently on location in Australia working on his latest movie, ``The Thin Red Line.''

Richard Cowan, a McCormick friend and former national director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he believes the government is stalling.

``The whole deal is to keep Todd from talking to the media as long as possible. It's one more day of business as usual with these guys. They're trying to protect us from him,'' Cowan said.

He said that prosecutors have insisted that Harrelson appear through a live videoconference link from Australia, with a fax machine in view of the camera. While on camera he is to receive, sign and send a document certifying he is aware of the actions of his employees to free McCormick, Cowan said.