Source: San Jose Mercury News Contact: Pubdate: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 PLAN IN WORKS FOR FIRST PUBLIC POT CLINIC By Alan Gathright Mercury News Staff Writer San Mateo County supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to craft a proposal to dispense contraband marijuana for medicinal use at public clinics while resuming a ban on private ``cannabis clubs.'' Board President Mike Nevin, who proposed creating the country's first governmentrun medicinal marijuana program, hoped to have a proposal by early next year. The plan for a oneyear trial of the county dispensary will be presented to state Attorney General Dan Lungren, an archfoe of cannabis clubs who has shown enough interest in Nevin's idea that he has assigned a staff attorney to work on the proposal. A public dispensary would require special state legislation. Nevin said he contacted state Sen. John Vasconcellos, DSan Jose, Tuesday, asking him to include the county project in legislation for a threeyear study on the effectiveness of medicinal marijuana. Lungren supports the legislation. Supervisors agreed to create a committee, involving county supervisors, law enforcement officials, healthcare professionals and the department of justice attorney, to develop the proposal. The committee will also develop guidelines for issuing identity cards to patients and their caregivers to help them avoid arrest for using and growing small amounts of medicinal marijuana. Sheriff Don Horsley gave wholehearted support for the public dispensaries, telling the board: ``I believe that is the most humane approach that I can think of to help the terminally ill, and people with AIDS and glaucoma.'' County officials hope to lead California out of the legal confusion created by state voters' passage last year of Proposition 215, which allowed physicians' approval of medicinal marijuana for seriously ill people, but gave no direction to cities and counties on how to distribute pot. The initiative allowed for patients to have marijuana grown by vaguely defined ``primary caregivers,'' giving rise to socalled cannabis clubs, which sell pot. Yet, it remains illegal under state and federal laws to transport and distribute marijuana for any reason. The attorney general and several counties have declared cannabis clubs illegal, but a trial court judge denied Lungren's request to shut down San Francisco's club. Officials in San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley have allowed clubs to operate under police scrutiny. Despite the plea Tuesday by an entrepreneur to let him open a forprofit pot dispensary for a six month trial in unincorporated North Fair Oaks, supervisors agreed with legal officials that public and private marijuana clinics remain illegal, and the board extended a ban imposed Oct. 7 on cannabis clubs for 10 months. ``I just hope that you don't set this issue on the back burner for a year,'' said a disappointed Salvador Garcia, who did not deliver on his promised protest at the sparsely attended meeting. ``These people have major concerns, they're dying and they can't eat.'' An official for a nonprofit San Jose marijuana dispensary said Lungren and San Mateo County officials are wasting time and money trying to ``reinvent the wheel'' while some 20 private pot clinics across California are serving the pressing needs of an estimated 20,000 patients.