MEDICAL-POT PANEL MEETING OUSTED FROM COUNTY OFFICES

Noncounty Business Banned, Officials Say

Members of San Diego's Medical Cannabis Task Force were told yesterday to
leave county offices minutes before they were to hold a media briefing on
proposed guidelines for marijuana use by sick people.

County officials said task force members were asked to leave the Public
Defender's Office after someone who opposes medical marijuana complained to
county Supervisor Bill Horn's office. They said it is against policy to use
county offices for noncounty business.

Juliana Humphrey, a county deputy public defender who heads the city's task
force, said she was unhappy with what happened.

"I'm amazed at what a political football this has become," she said.

Humphrey and other task force members, including one in a wheelchair, moved
the briefing a block away to the City Administration Building.

The City Council created the task force in 2001 to implement Proposition
215, a 1996 ballot measure that allows the medical use of marijuana but
sets no guidelines. The task force has recommended that sick people be
allowed to keep up to three pounds of marijuana upon a doctor's recommendation.

The county Board of Supervisors is on record opposing the medical use of
marijuana. But Horn's chief of staff, Joan Wonsley, and county Deputy Chief
Administrative Officer Harold Tuck said that had nothing to do with asking
the task force to move its media briefing.

Tuck, who called the Public Defender's Office to say the task force must
leave, said Humphrey was acting as a private citizen in her role as task
force chairwoman and violating the county policy on who can use county offices.

"That's not appropriate or proper," Tuck said.

Wonsley said she received a phone call yesterday morning from someone
identifying himself as a Tri-City Prevention Coalition member.

The caller complained about the city task force's use of county offices and
the the caller was referred to the county administrator's office, Wonsley said.

"It's no secret he (Horn) is against medical marijuana," Wonsley said. She
said the issue was not that the task force was discussing marijuana, but
that it was using county property and "this is not county business."