CITY SLOW TO ACT ON LAW FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

City Council Approved Guidelines 7 Months Ago

Seven months after the City Council approved medical marijuana
guidelines, sick and dying patients in San Diego may get a law
spelling out the rules under which they can grow the plant and use the
drug.

In a recent prepared response to questions from The San Diego
Union-Tribune, Mayor Dick Murphy said the City Council would consider
a medical marijuana ordinance Tuesday.

The ordinance's supporters and a council member increasingly became
concerned about the time between council approval of the guidelines
and consideration of an actual law. Ordinances normally come back to
local officials for approval within weeks of an initial vote.

Murphy made his announcement Sept. 5. A few hours earlier, the City
Attorney's Office said the mayor was given the proposed law weeks ago.
On Sept. 4, the City Manager's Office said it was still reviewing the
documents.

In his statement, Murphy said he opposes medical marijuana but would
not put off a vote.

Councilwoman Toni Atkins, who has pushed for medical marijuana
guidelines in San Diego, said she has been "a bit perturbed" by the
lag between approval of the guidelines and the vote on the actual ordinance.

Over the past months, city police officers have been relying on the
guidelines to determine whether chronically ill pot smokers are
complying with state law. Marijuana remains a federally banned narcotic.

Medical marijuana supporters worked for years to get local politicians
to implement the 1996 state law that legalized the drug for sick and
dying patients. Advocates say pot relieves pain, stimulates appetite
and reduces the side effects of some prescription medicines.

San Diego became one of the largest cities in the nation to approve
the medical use of marijuana in early February, when the council voted
6-3 in favor of guidelines that allow patients to possess up to a
pound of marijuana and to grow up to 12 plants.

Even though San Diego police have been working within the guidelines,
activists say patients need the legal protections that go along with
formally adding the standards to the municipal code.

"Patients continually come up to me asking questions about where the
ordinance is," said Michael Barbee of the San Diego chapter of
Americans for Safe Access, a marijuana advocacy group. "I have to tell
these people the city has not really gone ahead with protecting the
patients."

Drug-abuse prevention advocates, who waged a fierce campaign opposing
the San Diego policy, continue to try to convince council members that
there is no legitimate use for marijuana.

"The prevention and treatment community still know this is a dangerous
thing," said Libba Jackson D'Ambrosi, who works with the San Dieguito
Alliance for Drug-Free Youth. "It's treating something as medicine
which is really just a plant."

Other factors may have helped put off consideration, at least at
first, of the medical marijuana ordinance.

Former Police Chief David Bejarano, who strongly opposed the
guidelines, agreed to take over the Southern District of the U.S.
Marshals Service and resigned from the Police Department in April.

His replacement, William Lansdowne, who had been police chief in San
Jose, assumed command late last month. He supported efforts in
Northern California to implement the state medical marijuana law.

Also, the city of San Diego never financed its program to give medical
marijuana users identification cards to show when questioned by
police. The task force that drafted the guidelines is soliciting
donations to raise the $25,000 or so it needs to pay for the cards.

"We are a little bit frustrated," said Jerry Meier, chairman of the
medical marijuana task force. "We got the guidelines passed and the
verification cards passed, (then) we've kind of reached a standstill.

"The City Council is holding up a vote on the ordinance because
there's really no money to fund the card program."

The City Manager's Office said much of the delay came because city
lawyers were trying to craft precise language to limit the city's
liability if federal agents decide to crack down on local governments
with medical marijuana allowances.

Ed Plank, who works under City Manager Michael Uberuaga, also said
that when the guidelines were adopted in February, staff members
sought to combine the ID-card rules and marijuana guidelines into one
ordinance.

Because the city is not paying for the cards and the task force has
not found the money, there was no reason to expedite the draft
ordinance, Plank said.

The unrelated federal indictments last month of Councilmen Ralph
Inzunza, Charles Lewis and Michael Zucchet who all endorsed the
marijuana guidelines may affect the vote on the ordinance.

With the intense publicity and scrutiny the three council members are
receiving, it remains unclear whether they would continue to support a
medical marijuana law while being prosecuted by the federal government.

"This may not be the best time to bring this back for a vote," said
medical marijuana task force member Juliana Humphrey.

Claudia Little, a retired nurse from Point Loma who has become active
in medical marijuana circles, said she is not surprised San Diego has
been slow to follow through with adopting its ordinance.

She said that across California, elected officials and even
gubernatorial candidates pay lip service to Proposition 215, the
voter-approved initiative that allows for the medical use of marijuana.

"When it comes to having the guts to stand up to the federal
government, nobody has done that," she said. "Everyone is afraid to
actually implement this."