Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Examiner
Contact:  http://www.examiner.com/
Forum: http://examiner.com/cgi-bin/WebX
Author: Bob Egelko, The Examiner Staff

FEDERAL JUDGE LETS OAKLAND POT CLUB DISTRIBUTE DRUG

Ruling Limits Use To Strictly Defined Medical Necessity

Medical marijuana will soon be legal in Oakland under an unprecedented
ruling by a federal judge.

Over Clinton administration objections, U.S. District Judge Charles
Breyer allowed the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative to distribute
the drug to patients who face imminent harm without it and have no
legal alternative.

Monday's ruling comes three days after San Francisco health officials
started issuing photo ID cards to marijuana users who had their
doctors' approval.

A day earlier, a UC-San Francisco professor's study released at the
13th International AIDS Conference in South Africa found that
marijuana did not interfere with anti-retroviral drugs used against
AIDS and suggested it was effective against extreme weight loss
associated with the disease.

"We applaud the wisdom of the courts and again call upon the federal
authorities to reschedule" marijuana, now classified under federal law
as a substance with no legitimate medical use, said Jeff Jones,
executive director of the Oakland cooperative.

The government has shown no such inclination, moving instead to close
marijuana clubs that sprang up after California voters passed
Proposition 215 in November 1996. The initiative, adopted in varying
forms by seven other states, suspends state drug laws for patients
whose doctors recommend marijuana to ease pain, nausea or the side
effects of potent medicines for diseases that include AIDS and cancer.

Justice Reviewing Ruling

Justice Department spokeswoman Gretchen Michael said the department
was reviewing Breyer's ruling and had no comment.

The department has until the end of next week to decide whether to
seek Supreme Court review of an appellate ruling last September that
was the basis of Breyer's decision.

Implementation may not be quick or simple.

Following the language of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
Breyer said the cooperative could supply marijuana to patients who
showed a medical necessity - a serious condition, threatening imminent
harm, that has resisted all legal medicines but could be improved by
marijuana.

That is narrower than the Prop. 215 standards and will require Jones'
staff and medical advisors to screen the 2,500 members of the
cooperative, which halted marijuana distribution by court order in
October 1998. Jones said the review should take about a week and would
probably leave somewhere between 15 and 50 percent of the members
eligible for marijuana.

The ruling also has a limited scope, shielding only the Oakland
cooperative and not a handful of patients and growers who have been
turned down by other federal judges in the past year when they tried
to invoke a "necessity" defense against federal criminal charges.

Those defendants are counting on the appeals court to apply its
September ruling to their cases.

But Breyer's decision was nevertheless a dramatic victory for sponsors
of Prop. 215 after more than three years of adversity in state and
federal courts.

"This is the first step toward getting it in pharmacies. . . . The
genie's out of the bottle and they never can put it back," said Dennis
Peron, author of Prop. 215 and founder of the Cannabis Buyers' Club in
San Francisco.

The club, which predated the 1996 initiative, was closed by the
courts, and Peron now runs a farm in Lake County that distributes
marijuana to about 150 patients.

Hallinan: Legal Under 'Federal Law'

"It's a victory for everyone who voted for Prop. 215," said San
Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan. "Medical patients can
now use marijuana legally under federal law."

Breyer refused to carve out an exception for medical necessity in
October 1998 when he granted the Justice Department's request for an
injunction prohibiting marijuana distribution at the Oakland
cooperative and five others in Northern California.

The Oakland organization quickly reopened as a hemp store and patient
counseling center, with the backing of city officials.

Last September, the appeals court told Breyer to reconsider and said
evidence offered by the cooperative and its patients, about the
effectiveness of marijuana and lack of a legal substitute, would
support an exception unless the government rebutted it.

Breyer invited a rebuttal at a hearing last Friday but was told by
Justice Department lawyer Mark Quinlivan that he had nothing to add
beyond the fact that Congress and federal regulators considered
marijuana medically worthless.

"The government has still not offered any evidence to rebut (the
cooperative's) evidence that cannabis is medically necessary for a
group of seriously ill patients," Breyer said in his order Monday.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake