SANTA CRUZ OKS POT STRATEGY

City Department Would Dole Out Drug

The Santa Cruz City Council has voted to create a city department to
distribute medical marijuana, a move city leaders hope will bolster
its chances of winning a lawsuit that would legalize the use of medicinal pot.

The ordinance, which will not go into effect unless a federal court
allows it to proceed, passed by a 4-2 vote Tuesday.

"We think the fact that the city, an arm of government, wants to do
this will get us a much clearer hearing from the federal court," said
Mayor Mike Rotkin. "The court will be forced to confront the
states-right argument in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
and to answer the question whether the federal government has the
right to regulate medical marijuana use at all."

The 2003 lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose by the
Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

The federal government raided the Santa Cruz cooperative's farm in
2002, and the alliance -- joined by the city and county of Santa Cruz
- -- sued the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency, claiming the Constitution bars the federal government from
interfering with patients' rights to grow and use medical marijuana.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled that federal authorities can
prosecute medical marijuana users despite Proposition 215, the
state's voter-approved ballot initiative that legalized cannabis for
medicinal purposes in 1996.

Rotkin said the city wants to distribute medical marijuana itself
because existing entities -- the cooperative and a pot club -- cannot
meet the needs of residents, and because people who use medicinal pot
live under the constant threat that "the feds can swoop in and arrest
them" at any time.

Santa Cruz Councilmember Tim Fitzmaurice, who voted in favor of the
ordinance, said the city has made the "commonsense decision" that
marijuana is a medicine that should be available to people who are ill.

"Many people would like to see this issue dealt with in a much more
organized way," Fitzmaurice said. "People are a little afraid of the
lack of discipline that surrounds the use of the stuff. Generally
speaking, if we could find a way to have marijuana delivered through
pharmacies in effective doses, I think support would be a lot more widespread."

Councilmember Cynthia Mathews, who voted against the ordinance, said
she has long supported the use of medical marijuana, but described
the idea of creating a city department to distribute medicinal pot as
"unwise, unworkable and unrealistic at a time when the city's
resources are incredibly strapped."

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco declined
to comment on the Santa Cruz ordinance.

Hilary McQuie, communications director of Americans for Safe Access,
a medicinal marijuana advocacy organization based in Oakland, said
the group appreciates the position the Santa Cruz City Council has staked out.

"However, they know and we know that the federal government is not
going to approve a city department distributing marijuana until the
federal government changes the classification of marijuana in the
Controlled Substances Act," she said.

"It's not a wasted effort. But on a practical level, it's not going
to provide medicine for patients."

Currently, marijuana is included in the same classification as
heroin, as a dangerous, highly addictive drug with no accepted
medical uses, she said.

The group was one of several that petitioned the federal government
to reclassify marijuana in 2002.