Pubdate: Wed, 12 Oct 2005
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2005 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Jane Meredith Adams, Special To The Tribune
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

ARE POT CLUBS LEGAL? IT'S HAZY

Despite feds' right to crack down, medical marijuana in California 
seems safe for now

San Francisco --  Four months after the Supreme Court upheld the 
right of the federal government to crack down on the sale and use of 
medical marijuana, California's estimated 150,000 medical marijuana 
patients are still puffing freely.

Nellie, the so-called bud-tender at the Alternative Herbal Health 
Services medical marijuana dispensary here, tucked some cannabis into 
a pipe recently and lit up. Reaching across a display case holding 
marijuana brownies, she passed the pipe to Leather Webb, 51, who took 
a hit and handed the pipe to three guys relaxing on a couch.

Leaning against a wall and exhaling a cloud of pungent smoke, Webb 
said marijuana eases the residual pain from 15 surgeries on her left 
leg, which was damaged by polio.

"I was on 100 milligrams of morphine twice a day," she said. "I was 
zombied. I got my cannabis to take me off of it."

As they smoke, the air grows as hazy as the complicated legal saga of 
medical marijuana. When California voters passed Proposition 215 in 
1996, medical marijuana became legal under state law but remained 
illegal under federal law. Federal authorities have always had the 
right to arrest and prosecute people using marijuana for medical 
reasons in the 10 states that have passed laws allowing such use. 
California's law is considered among the most liberal in the nation.

In San Francisco, federal agents largely had stayed away from 34 
marijuana dispensaries in the city until this past summer, when the 
Drug Enforcement Administration closed three clubs, as some of the 
dispensaries are known, and charged 19 people with using the clubs as 
drug-trafficking and money-laundering fronts for organized crime. 
More than 9,309 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of $5 
million were seized from the clubs and associated warehouses.

The DEA said the raids, part of Operation Urban Harvest, were the 
culmination of a two-year investigation and were not related to the 
Supreme Court decision.

While some in the medical marijuana community here say the raids and 
the Supreme Court decision have made them nervous, few expect the DEA 
to launch an all-out assault against the dispensaries. For its part, 
the San Francisco Police Department has a policy of not entering the clubs.

"The clubs are not being raided, but people are scared," said Hilary 
McQuie, a spokeswoman for Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland-based 
coalition.

Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy 
Alliance, said a ramped-up federal assault on medical marijuana is 
unlikely, given that California is a politically powerful state led 
by a Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Enforcement Risky

"For the feds to come into a state of a Republican governor who has 
explicitly said he supports medical marijuana and start busting 
people--to tromp state and local rights and a law that is supported 
by 70 percent of the people--would be a particularly defiant thing to 
do," Nadelmann said.

At the local DEA office, the talk is of going after major dealers.

"We investigate large traffickers," said Javier Pena, special agent 
in charge at the agency's San Francisco office. "We're not after the 
users, the sick people, the dying people."

For some law-enforcement officers, medical marijuana has presented a 
tricky legal situation. California's law differs from the federal 
law, county district attorneys have varying stances about whether 
medical marijuana cases should be prosecuted, and each county can set 
its own limits about how much marijuana patients and caretakers may 
possess, as long as it's no less than the 8 ounces allowed by the state.

A patient may legally possess 3 pounds of medical marijuana in Santa 
Cruz County and then travel with the marijuana to Fresno County, 
where the limit is 8 ounces. "Clearly, we're frustrated," said Fresno 
County Assistant Sheriff Jeff Hollis. "The state attorney general's 
office has stated that the medical marijuana law is still in force, 
yet we have a Supreme Court decision that says it's illegal. 
Law-enforcement officers are walking a tightrope: Whose law do you apply?"

With marijuana dispensaries remaining apparent fixtures in San 
Francisco's neighborhoods, the city is for the first time preparing 
to regulate the location and licensing of the clubs, which serve 
7,500 residents who carry medical marijuana authorization cards 
provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. A patient 
must have a doctor's recommendation to obtain the card. Legislation, 
which is expected to be put to a vote next month by the city's Board 
of Supervisors, will seek to resolve issues such as loitering, 
double-parking, noise, violent crime and the proliferation of clubs.

"I don't think there's anybody who wants to see patients who need 
medical marijuana being prevented from getting it," said Supervisor 
Sean Elsbernd, whose district includes two of the three clubs that 
were closed by the DEA. But, he added, "there's concern that some of 
the patients are turning around and selling it to kids."

Capt. Tim Hettrich, head of the narcotics and vice division of the 
San Francisco Police Department, said he wouldn't comment on whether 
medical marijuana has ended up on the street.

Liberal Definition

California also has the most liberal definition of who qualifies for 
treatment, said Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The law calls for "seriously ill Californians" to have access to 
marijuana for use in the treatment of "cancer, anorexia, AIDS, 
chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other 
illness for which marijuana provides relief."

According to a 2000 report from the California chapter of the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 40 percent of 
medical marijuana is used to treat chronic pain, 29 percent is for 
AIDS or HIV-related treatment, and 15 percent is used to treat mood 
disorders, with the remainder in all other categories.

Under California law, doctors have wide discretion in authorizing use 
of marijuana. Nadelmann says this is no different from the discretion 
doctors have in prescribing traditional pharmaceuticals.

"We're increasingly living in a society where what's medical and 
what's not is unclear," Nadelmann said. "What do you call Viagra and 
other pharmaceuticals? How does marijuana relate to Ritalin or Prozac?"
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman