PATIENTS RESOLVE TO KEEP USING POT, AND SUPPLIERS VOW TO KEEP IT FLOWING

Justices Bar Sale Of Pot For Medicinal Purposes

Angel McClary could not bear for her children to watch her deteriorate. So
McClary, who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor, anorexia and a seizure
disorder, began using pot in 1998.

And the 35-year-old Oakland mother of two said she has no intention of
stopping now, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that makes it impossible
to provide medicinal marijuana to seriously ill patients without violating
federal drug laws.

McClary minced no words denouncing the decision, saying she won't be a
martyr. "I'm not willing to die; I'm not going to stand for it," said an
emotional McClary, adding that the Supreme Court had "American human blood
on their hands."

McClary and others like her plan to keep using the drug, which helps
control her nausea and stimulates her appetite. "They leave me no other
choice . . . We shouldn't have to be dealing with the criminal element out
on the street. This is what our country has reduced us to," McClary said.

Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative,
where the case originated, described the ruling as "heavy-handed and
misguided."

For Hanna Gaylord, 34, of Santa Cruz, the decision was particularly
disturbing. Gaylord -- who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1992 --
began taking pot in 1996 to help reduce spasms. "It's outrageous. I think
there should be a revolution here; the government has no right to keep
marijuana from patients," said Gaylord, who uses a wheelchair.

In San Francisco, dispensers of medicinal marijuana acknowledged that the
ruling might open the way for federal agents to shut them down.
Nevertheless they vowed to keep medicinal pot flowing.

"We have no intention of changing anything we do or denying service to any
of our patients," said Wayne Justmann, co-founder of the San Francisco
Patients' Resource Center. "No matter what the government said to us, the
need exists for thousands of Californians to have this herb. Cannabis is
useful in treating side effects for other drugs, keeping up your appetite."

Others also pledged to stay open. Michael Bellefountaine of the AIDS
Coalition to Unleash Power said he will continue to sell to about 1,200
patients, many with HIV or AIDS. "Any attempt to criminalize medical
marijuana above ground will only encourage it to go underground,"
Bellefountaine said.

The pot providers are in friendly country. San Francisco District Attorney
Terence Hallinan has declined to prosecute medicinal marijuana cases and
has defended its use.

But the possibility of a federal crackdown does worry people such as Randi
Webster, 46, who said she is all but immobilized from arthritis that only
marijuana has alleviated.

"Back in the '80s I'd go on the street corners to buy it," she recalled.
"Sometimes I'd get beat up because I look like a little old 4-foot-10-inch
lady with a wobbly leg. People saw me buying it. They'd come and steal from
me. Now I can get marijuana in a safe way, and they want to take it away
from me."

Dustin Dolin, 20, who also said he suffers excruciating arthritis, distills
his medicinal marijuana down to one small component, known as a
cannabinoid, that stifles his pain but does not make him high.

"If they cut it off . . . it would slowly wear me down to nothing," he
said. "I'm not the kind of person who could buy it on the street or grow it."

But at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinics, in the same neighborhood
where pot use flourished in the 1960s, medical director Dr. David Smith
said he thinks the court ruling was correct. "Marijuana is still a Schedule
1 controlled substance just like LSD or heroin or ecstasy," he said.

In Santa Cruz, which on Sunday hosted its annual Industrial Hemp Expo, the
reaction to the Supreme Court decision among many medicinal marijuana
supporters seemed to be, "Who cares what Clarence Thomas thinks? This is
Santa Cruz."

Former City Councilman Mike Rotkin said law enforcement authorities in
liberal Santa Cruz County have to face the reality that juries will simply
not convict a cancer patient for smoking a joint if it was to relieve the
nausea of chemotherapy. So they'll spend their valuable time enforcing
other laws, he predicted.

Indeed, the city of Santa Cruz has been lenient with pot clubs -- as long
as they operate quietly and don't attract the attention of neighbors.

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, San Mateo County will proceed as planned
with the first locally funded medicinal marijuana study in the country. In
the coming weeks, patients who are HIV-positive and need marijuana for pain
relief will be given rolled joints for a six-week trial period as part of
the county-funded study.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, a former police detective who spent
years fighting for the necessary state and federal approvals, said the data
is needed now more than ever. But he conceded that distribution is still a
large, unresolved issue.

"California's Proposition 215 won't be accepted throughout the country
unless we prove scientifically and medically that in fact marijuana works
for the sick and dying," Nevin said. "We're going to continue to fight the
Supreme Court and the U.S. government on Proposition 215."