POT CLUB 'FRUSTRATED' BY SUPREMES' RULING

The future of medical marijuana suddenly grew more cloudy Monday, May
14, as proponents sought to interpret the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous
decision disallowing a medical defense for seriously ill patients who
use the drug for health reasons.

At a press conference on Monday following the 8-0 Supreme Court decision
against clubs that provide medical cannabis, Robert Raich, attorney for
the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative said, "We are saddened and
disappointed that the Supreme Court ruled against providing medicine to
seriously ill and dying patients."

However, OCBC co-founder and director Jeff Jones told the Bay Area
Reporter that the ruling was "more of a frustration" than a
disappointment, and that given past rulings, he had not expected a
positive outcome.

The ruling upheld an injunction that enjoined the club from distributing
marijuana, overturning an earlier appeals court ruling that held that
the OCBC could provide the herb to seriously ill patients with a valid
medical necessity defense (see accompanying story).

Jones likened the justices' decision to the 1857 Dred Scott decision, in
which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of slavery. Just as that decision
helped spark the Civil War, Jones said that Monday's decision "could be
the ruling that ignites a civil movement to change the laws regarding
medical cannabis."

The OCBC plans to go back to district court in an attempt to find other
avenues of litigation that might be more successful. According to Raich,
"We have many other issues to present in the district court which were
not ripe for appellate review last time around. We will be pursuing all
of these issues now."

Said Jones, "We believe the truth is behind us, and that marijuana is a
therapeutic and beneficial plant. If we have to take this to a jury, we
will."

A recent case in Sonoma County suggests that a jury might look favorably
on the OCBC's case. On April 18, a Sonoma jury acquitted two men charged
with cultivating medicinal cannabis for members of a San Francisco
marijuana club. The jury ruled that Ken Hayes and Michael Foley,
executive director and dispensary manager, respectively, of Californians
Helping Alleviate Medical Problems at the time of their arrest, could be
considered primary caregivers for patients in accordance with
Proposition 215. The proposition, passed by the state's voters in 1996,
allows a patient or primary caregiver to cultivate and possess cannabis
for medical purposes, but did not specify how medical marijuana could be
distributed.

The Sonoma case, however, involved state law, whereas the OCBC case was
prosecuted under federal drug statutes. According to the American
Medical Marijuana Association, medical marijuana laws still stand in the
several states that have passed them. The AMMA predicted that medical
cannabis clubs "will simply switch from distributing medical pot to
helping patients grow their own."

Dale Gieringer of the California chapter of the National Organization
for Reform of Marijuana Laws, one of the original authors of Proposition
215, denounced the Supreme Court for upholding "a morally bankrupt and
unenforceable policy." It would be a "serious mistake" for the federal
government to try to close California's cannabis clubs, which "provide a
valuable service to their members and their communities," said
Gieringer. "As soon as one club is closed, others will open. The
government would be better advised to change its policy, and not waste
more law enforcement resources in a misguided and unwinnable
prohibitionist campaign to deny medicine to sick people."

According to Jones, a jury is likely to rule in favor of medicinal
cannabis "because the jury is us, not a bunch of government bureaucrats
who are tied up with 'sending the wrong message' to a kid by allowing
his parent who is sick with cancer to have his medicine." Jones's hopes
were further bolstered by a CNN.com poll on Monday showing that 78
percent of more than 80,000 respondents agreed that people should be
allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes.