SUPERVISOR'S TURNAROUND ON POT CLUBS

Barely four months after Oakland cracked down on the number of medical
marijuana clubs in a downtown area known as "Oaksterdam," pot clubs
are sprouting along a strip a few miles southeast of the city limits.

Seven clubs, including at least one pushed out of Oakland, have
planted themselves along East 14th Street in unincorporated Alameda
County.

Maybe they should call the new pot district "East Oaksterdam."

No sooner had the dispensaries opened their doors than the nearby
residents of Ashland and Cherryland began hollering. Their opposition
reached the elected county leader for that area, Supervisor Nate Miley.

Miley, you may recall, made headlines five years ago as an Oakland
city councilman when he supported the city's move to declare a medical
marijuana club a public agency, becoming the first city in the nation
to officially distribute pot for medicinal use.

In February this year, Supervisor Miley told council members at a
meeting that they should allow eight to 10 Oakland clubs to sell pot
legally under a 1996 law, approved by state voters, that legalized
marijuana for medical uses.

Miley told his former council colleagues that four dispensaries in the
city would be "too restrictive.'' The city faced a proliferation of
clubs in "Oaksterdam," where as many as a dozen operated virtually
unregulated. The council voted to limit the number to four.

Now, Miley is changing his tune. Last week, he voted with other county
supervisors to impose a 45-day ban on new medical marijuana
dispensaries in Ashland and Cherryland.

He thinks it would be a good idea to reduce the number of existing
clubs in his district, which stretches from Oakland to Castro Valley.

His flip-flop outraged Oakland Councilman Danny Wan. "If a ban and a
restriction on the use of marijuana is good for the unincorporated
county areas, it should be good for Oakland, too," Wan said.

The truth seems to be that Miley has come around to thinking that the
city's restrictions are good for county areas.

His conversion took awhile. As a supervisor, Miley has continued his
medical marijuana crusade -- without the legislative support he
enjoyed in Oakland, where he sponsored a 1998 city ordinance allowing
pot use for medicinal purposes and supported a 1 1/2-pound personal
limit for medical patients.

He also advocated allowing patrons of Oakland's pot clubs to consume
pot cookies on the premises.

This election season, he has endorsed the campaign for an advisory
measure on Tuesday's ballot that calls on Oakland city officials to
turn a blind eye to marijuana use and cultivation, whether for medical
or recreational use.

It took Miley two years to garner enough support from other county
supervisors to approve a measure to issue medical marijuana cards to
needy constituents.

But when the medical marijuana caregivers descended on Ashland and
Cherryland, more than doubling the number of dispensaries in a
three-month period, Miley's colleagues started receiving constituent
calls, and he started pedaling backward.

The day after the board passed the moratorium on the clinics, Miley
and Supervisor Alice Lai Bitker attended the monthly meeting of
unincorporated residents and heard a snoutful of complaints.

"When Miley first came to the unincorporated area, I was very
impressed with his work,'' said Kathy Ready, president of the San
Lorenzo Homeowners Association, which represents about 6,000 homeowners.

"I liked him so much that I would have been his campaign manager if he
ran for pope, but I'm very disappointed in what's happened around
these clinics,'' she said. "Whether or not you believe in the benefits
of medical marijuana, seven of them is too many. It's overkill.''

Miley's constituents appear to have won him over, because he sounds
like a rehabilitated man who sees the need for government regulation
of the clinics.

"We've got to regulate them like liquor stores, and that's basically
what we're attempting to do,'' Miley told me.

He has suddenly had a political epiphany about the need for
governmental regulation of pot clubs, even after Berkeley, Hayward and
Oakland placed limits on the number of clubs that can operate in their
cities.

"I would suspect that some (clubs) are going to be closed, and they
need to be spread out, though no one at this point can say how many
the county will sanction,'' Miley said.

Well, because he's the supervisor working on a proposed ordinance, he
should have a pretty good idea of what the goal should be.

"Maybe we'll shoot for four or so,'' he said.

Hmm. That sounds like a familiar number.