NOW, THE EMPHATIC COLONIC NEWS

Chevron To Turks: Bay Is Pristine! (snipped)
Tenants To Landlords: You're Illegal! (snipped)
GOP To Pot Doctor: Good Job!
Potheads To Supervisors: Like, Wow -- A Sanctuary!

Dr. Tod Mikuriya Of Berkeley Shows Us Man-Screwing Of Professional
Proportions.

Mikuriya has done such a delicious (if insignificant) job of thumbing
his nose at The Man that I've found myself in the lamentable position of
admiring someone I might otherwise disparage. You see, the doctor's
Berkeley office has churned out more then 5,000 prescriptions for
medical marijuana since 1996, a pace that suggests he has, at the very
least, an overly broad sense of weed's curative properties.

But Friday I received the following press release, causing me to take a
softer view of the good doctor:

"The National Republican Congressional Committee has given Tod Mikuriya,
M.D., a "National Leadership Award.' A gilt-sealed certificate names him
Honorary Co-Chairman of the NRCC's Physician's Advisory Board. Mikuriya,
67, is a dignified Berkeley psychiatrist who has devoted his career to
studying the medical uses of cannabis. Since the passage of Prop 215, he
has recommended the herb for some 5,000 patients with diverse disorders.
"This award is a welcome antidote to being dissed by district attorneys
and harassed by the California Medical Board,' Mikuriya said today."

By writing and distributing his release, Mikuriya set up the conditions
for the following fabulous conversation with Carl Forti, communications
director, National Republican Congressional Committee.

Carl: This is an award that's given to physicians around the country who
have supported us in the past. It's a group of doctors invited to attend
meetings here in Washington, D.C., and share their opinions on today's
issues."

SF Weekly: Dr. Mikuriya, the new honorary co-chairman of your
Physician's Advisory Board, is best known for getting in trouble with
the California Attorney General's Office for advocating medical
cannabis. What kind of help has he given the Advisory Board? Is he
advising you on drug policy?

Carl: (Silence.) This is a partial fund-raising group, so he would at
some point in the past have given money to us as well.

SFW: So he got this award for making contributions?

Carl: Absolutely.

This absolute assertion raised the absolutely delicious possibility that
the Republican Congressional Committee was being funded from the
proceeds of Northern California pot dealing; sadly, it isn't. "I do his
books, and I'd know if he did, and he didn't [make donations to the
NRCC]," Mikuriya's office manager, John Trapp, insisted during a
follow-up call.

The press release, as it happens, was a prank by Mikuriya. He hoped to
highlight the GOP committee's Publishers Clearing House-style
fund-raising mailers, which proclaim doctors to be Physician's Advisory
Board co-chairmen, then hit them up for donations.

"I did this because the Republicans have really sunk into a new level of
sleaze," Mikuriya said when I phoned him. "I thought, "Why not? I'll
play along with this.' Now, I look forward to meeting with other
Republican leaders and talking about alternate approaches to drug
problems."(footnote 2)

Dr. Mikuriya's screw-The-Man pranking put me in the perfect frame of
mind Friday afternoon for crashing a monthly strategy meeting between
S.F. city officials and S.F. medical marijuana distributors. There, I
learned about a meaningless act of screw-The-Man bravura that I find
truly charming.

San Francisco will soon become a medical marijuana sanctuary.

No, I'm not toking. In the manner of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement, which
sought to protect refugees fleeing war in Central America, the Board of
Supervisors may soon consider a resolution that declares: "[T]he San
Francisco District Attorney and the California Attorney General are
urged not to assist in the prosecution of individual patients or
cannabis providers."

The measure comes on the heels of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision
casting doubt on Proposition 215, a 1996 initiative allowing patients,
with a doctor's recommendation, to grow and use marijuana for pain
relief. The court said Congress, not California voters, has the final
say in the matter of controlled substances.

The marijuana sanctuary resolution, which is being drafted by the City
Attorney's Office, would essentially implore law enforcement agencies to
leave San Francisco potheads alone. The resolution is tentatively backed
by Supervisors Sophie Maxwell, Mark Leno, Jake McGoldrick, and Matt
Gonzalez, according to fine print on a draft version of the resolution
the City Attorney's Office presented to medical marijuana dealers
Friday. A final proposed version will be brought to a meeting of the
marijuana club directors scheduled for Oct. 5, an assistant city
attorney said.

Now, it's well known that District Attorney Terence Hallinan doesn't
prosecute dope dealers. And San Francisco has no say in what the state
attorney general does. So the sanctuary measure would have no immediate,
practical significance.

Still, even though I've never tried marijuana, there's something I find
uniquely precious about living in a dope sanctuary. And unlike the
unconstitutional, convoluted, complex Band-Aid laws we've been throwing
at, say, housing, the sanctuary movement does absolutely no harm.

Toke on dudes! Death to Chevron!

(1) http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2001-07-11/smith.html

(2) Forti called me back later to say that the Republican Congressional
Committee planned to return any contributions Dr. Mikuriya might have
made, if the committee indeed found he was a medical marijuana advocate.