ATTORNEY GENERAL PROPOSES SENSIBLE RULES ON MEDICAL POT

The hazy legality of medical marijuana just got a little clearer.
Since 1996 when voters approved a measure allowing the humane use of
cannabis to ease sickness and pain, California has struggled to come
up with an orderly way to supply the weed.

Federal law hasn't help as Washington insisted that pot is illegal,
plain and simple. And local communities have deployed varying rules
to rein in the runaway profusion of loosely watched dispensaries.
Neither police nor medical marijuana sponsors are happy with the
confusing present-day picture.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown believes new guidelines can
solve the practical problems, minimize the legal worries and calm
patient fears.

His plans, as always, rely on a wink and a nod from the feds, who
retain the last word legally. But the Justice Department, via Joseph
Russoniello, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, suggests that
scaling back operations as outlined by Brown would be tolerated. The
feds, Russoniello says, are mainly interested in the big growers and
traffickers, not the small-time tokers with chronic back pain or a
debilitating illness.

The changes call for dispensaries to be run as nonprofits or
cooperatives, a shift designed to cut out big-bucks operators who now
exploit the medical label to sell pot to nearly anyone who shows up
at the door. There are approximately 300 dispensaries statewide with
29 operating in San Francisco, far more than the city needs.

Under Brown's outline, patients would be urged to get a state ID card
obtained with a doctor's note. Presently, some counties issue such
cards while others don't. Marijuana sellers also accept a physician's
recommendation, adding another variable, while some hardly ask at all.

Brown also wants a reality check on the vast amount of pot on the
market. Only a patient, caregiver or dispensary could grow the
relatively small amounts of marijuana needed. This would cut medical
pot off from a surging and often violent weed-growing industry worth
$14 billion in 2006, according to a recent drug-policy study.

Brown's idea would have the practical effect of clarifying what
medical marijuana is all about: modest amounts of pot for the sick.
In California there's an estimated 200,000 patients who smoke for
relief, but the number is a best-guess because of the loose rules.

The guidelines aim for a balance by allowing medical use but stopping
short of legalization, which is a legal nonstarter. The plan has
picked up key support from both medical marijuana supporters and law
enforcement.

"A number of police chiefs and sheriffs wanted guidelines and a clear
set of rules," Brown said. "It adds caution within the framework of
Prop. 215," the ballot measure that allowed pot use 12 years ago, he said.

It's hard to tell how many storefront operations will follow the
guidelines. But the rules should add a level of responsibility and
clarity that's missing now. The attorney general has come up with
practical rules that should improve a humane law.

Attorney General Jerry Brown has put forward guidlelines on medical
marijuana to clarify murky rules and strike a balance between access
for the sick and general prohibition for everyone else.

Here are the significant issues:

SALES: Cannabis dispensaries must do business as cooperatives or
collectives. This rule takes aim at large, profit-making operations
that use the health care intent of the state law as a front for
widespread selling. Prices must be pegged to cost of production and overhead.

AMOUNT: A patient, caregiver, or dispensary can grow up to six plants
per patient. A patient may keep eight ounces of hand for use. The
cannabis must be grown by the patient or dispensary and can't be
purchased from outside growers, a directive aimed at limiting
operations and excluding major traffickers.

ID: A state identification card for medical marijuana users will be
offered. It's designed to replace a confusing sign-up system that
includes locally -issued ID cards and individual enrollments at
cannabis outlets.