HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

The High Court's Marijuana Ruling Won't Play In Mendocino

UKIAH, CALIF.-A neat row of bright-green seedlings basks in the
sunlight on Patrick's window sill. Together with the 20 fullgrown
plants sitting in plastic kiddie pools under fluorescent lights in his
basement, these plants supply the stout, white-bearded Californian and
a handful of other locals with medicine.

And though part of his tiny marijuana crop is clearly visible from the
driveway, he's unconcerned about the law. "I feel totally legal," he
says. "I have searched my soul and feel like finally we got the law
changed to a level where we can comply."

Others disagree.

In a unanimous decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the
idea that the medical need for marijuana can be used as a defense in
federal courts.

Although it's a fairly narrow ruling-very few small-time growers or
users ever end up in federal court-it could effectively end open,
large-scale distribution of medical marijuana. But here in rural
Mendocino County, 100 miles north of San Francisco, the ruling is more
of an inconvenience than anything else. In response to California's
Proposition 215, which decriminalized marijuana for medical use in
1996, county law enforcement officials have set up a registration
program for patients and their growers.

And last year local Mendocino voters approved Measure G, a symbolic
call to legalize "personal medical or recreational use."

It's no surprise that this would happen here. Mendocino is at the
southern tip of California's famed "Emerald Triangle," where for
decades marijuana cultivation has been a cottage industry in the
area's rugged gullies and canyons.

But lately even local politicians and police seem to have made their
peace with the drug. "We deal with it fine," says Mendocino District
Attorney Norm Vroman. "It's the rest of the country that's all screwed
up."

While Mendocino is more progressive on this issue than most regions,
it's not alone.

Eight states now have laws making marijuana legally available for
people using it to curb disease-related nausea, pain, or muscle spasms
and to increase appetite.

More state ballot initiatives are on their way, and Canada plans to
implement medical-use laws this summer.

But federal law remains unchanged since the Controlled Substances Act
of 1970-the law addressed by the Supreme Court-classified marijuana as
a Schedule I drug, meaning it has "no currently accepted medical use"
and "a high potential for abuse." That's a stricter classification
than even cocaine and methamphetamine, yet there is great resistance
to easing the sanctions. "We already have alcohol and tobacco, two
pretty bad legal drugs," says Robert Maginnis of the Family Research
Council. "If we go down the path of legalizing [marijuana], drug use
will go into orbit. Medical marijuana is just about buying sympathy
and eroding the public stance on changing the laws." As a result of
the fear of appearing soft on drugs, many states, even those with
medical marijuana laws, still maintain harsh potential penalties for
offenders.

The result is that state and local law enforcement is increasingly
torn between the punitive federal position and the increasingly
progressive will of the community.

Since only about 1 in 100 marijuana arrests is made by federal agents,
local authorities are playing a larger and larger part in shaping the
actual patterns of marijuana use in the country. These circumstances
result in large part from the AIDS crisis in San Francisco a decade
ago. Recalls Dennis Peron, a longtime activist who opened a cannabis
club in 1991: "That 'munchies' thing you always used to laugh about
isn't a joke when an AIDS patient is eating again after throwing up
for two days." Public sympathy for such suffering persuaded most city
officials to look the other way, and soon San Franciscans made it
official, with 80 percent voting for a proposition urging the city not
to penalize doctors or patients using or prescribing marijuana.

As public support for medical use grew-, Peron and his allies drafted
California's Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act
of 1996. The vaguely worded proposition guarantees Californians the
right to use marijuana for medical reasons if a physician recommends
it; it lists several diseases, including AIDS, but adds "any other
illness for which marijuana provides relief." The proposition passed
easily in 1996, with 56 percent of voters supporting it. Prop. 215
made it easier for California legislators, prosecutors, and sheriffs
to look the other way. "Prosecutors don't want to prosecute these people.

It's not in their interest to take someone who's deathly ill and put
them in a jail cell," says National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws Allen St. Pierre. Indeed, since Prop. 215, a string of
California juries have acquitted growers and users.

One district attorney is even facing a recall because citizens feel
she has prosecuted marijuana offenders too vigorously. LIVES VS. LAWS.
The emotional case for medical use is gripping.

When San Franciscan Clifford Braun was diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis 23 years ago, his doctor recommended he smoke marijuana to
treat the condition's painful muscle spasms.

Braun smokes three or four joints a day, which he says leaves him
feeling better than the high doses of Valium and other tranquilizers
he would otherwise have to use: "This isn't drug abuse. It's medicine."

The medical evidence is more ambiguous. Indeed,
opponents of medical marijuana laws accuse proponents of hiding behind
sick people in an effort to get marijuana legalized for everyone.

Advocates deny this, though many do support legalization. "We don't
think sick people or healthy people should be put in prison for
smoking marijuana," says Chuck Thomas of the Marijuana Policy Project.
"We focus on sick people because they need it now."

The murky legal situation puts the police in a bind, too. Mendocino
County Sheriff Tony Craver's solution has been to work with county
health officials to register medical marijuana users-and growers like
Patrick who provide them with pot. But he says this is mainly a
convenience, providing patients with official ID in case they are stopped.

And so, in this case at least, few in Mendocino are listening to the
Supreme Court's opinion. "Very frankly, I'm hard pressed to prosecute
anybody for any amount of marijuana," says Vroman. "If the federal
government wants to come up here and arrest people, I suppose they can
.... Luckily, I don't take direction from the federal government. I
take direction from the local voters."

[sidebar]

RX MUNCHIES

By Emily Sohn

Is grass a proven tonic?

Marijuana, as medicine, presents a paradox: It can ease the symptoms
of chronic disease.

But it's usually smoked, and smoking is generally thought to be bad
for you.

After evaluating decades of research, the Institute of Medicine ran
into just that wall. "The report found potential medical benefits in
the active ingredients of marijuana," says Janet Joy, director of the
IOM's 1999 study, "but it's due almost completely to one particular
molecule that's packaged in an unhealthy way."

The molecule, called THC, is the most potent of the plant's 400-plus
chemical ingredients and has received the majority of scientific
scrutiny. In pill form, THC has been shown to reduce nausea, increase
appetite, and ease pain. But the pill, called Marinol, often takes
hours to kick in, and the high can be disturbing, intense, and long
lasting.

One toke. The argument for smoking is that it delivers relief
immediately, and dosage is easier to control.

But the evidence is largely anecdotal.

In perhaps the only recent clinical trial, Donald Abrams of the
University of California-San Francisco found that male AIDS patients
who smoked marijuana three times a day for 21 days maintained robust
immune systems and gained more weight than did patients on a placebo
pill. Supporters of such research say isolated THC is less effective
than the whole plant, and that low doses do not pose a serious risk of
lung cancer.

No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose.

Even smoking's opponents who say other drugs can treat the same
symptoms just as well admit that marijuana can help patients when
nothing else works. Scientists are looking for better ways to
administer THC, including inhalers, skin patches, even suppositories.
For many patients, smoking may remain a more appealing option.