COURT RETURNS POT CLUB TRIAL TO OAKLAND

SAN FRANCISCO -- The criminal trial of the state's most prominent medical
marijuana advocate on drug sales charges is heading from San Francisco,
where his marijuana club operates, back to Oakland, where Attorney General
Dan Lungren got him indicted.

The state's 1st District Court of Appeal, in a ruling made public Tuesday,
overturned an Alameda County judge's decision to transfer the trial to San
Francisco. Dennis Peron, founder of the organization now called the
Cannabis Cultivators Club, criticized the ruling but said he would accept
it and push for an early trial.

``I really believe we're going to win no matter where we are,'' said Peron,
who is also running against Lungren in the Republican primary for governor
in June.

Lungren spokesman Matt Ross said the case should be tried in Alameda County
because the indictment was issued there and included crimes that occurred
there. He declined comment when asked why Lungren did not want the case
tried in San Francisco, where the club was raided and some of the alleged
crimes also took place.

The club, which described itself as a provider of medical marijuana to AIDS
and cancer patients and other seriously ill people, was allowed to operate
for years by San Francisco officers but was raided in August 1996 by
Lungren's agents. They said they seized more than 40 pounds of marijuana
and saw marijuana being sold without any demonstration of a buyer's medical
needs.

Peron, author of the November 1996 medical marijuana initiative,
Proposition 215, and five others at the club were later indicted on charges
of transporting and selling marijuana, possessing it for sale and
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Lungren has also sought a court
order to shut down the club.

The two sides have fought over whether the criminal case should be tried in
San Francisco, where the marijuana club has strong public support, or in
Alameda County, which is somewhat more conservative.

Last October, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Dean Beaupre ordered a
transfer to San Francisco. He found relatively little connection between
the charges and Alameda County, and said there had been ``an appearance of
improper forum-shopping'' by Lungren.

But the appeals court, in a 3-0 ruling, said judges have no authority to
transfer a case for those reasons.

If a case is charged in a county where at least some of the alleged crimes
occurred, it must be tried in that county unless it is unlikely that an
impartial jury can be found there, said the opinion by Justice Robert
Dossee. A judge ``has no inherent power to otherwise order removal of an
action,'' he said.