MEDICAL-POT GUIDELINES MIGHT OK LESS THAN 3 PUONDS

City Council Review set for next month

The amount of marijuana that sick people could keep to ease their symptoms
will likely be less than the three pounds a citizens task force recommended,
when proposed guidelines go to the San Diego City Council for review next
month.

"We should start at a smaller amount," said City Councilman Ralph Inzunza
Jr., one of the strongest council advocates for adopting guidelines for
medical use of marijuana.

Inzunza and Councilwoman Toni Atkins, also a medical marijuana supporter,
said too many people, including Mayor Dick Murphy, oppose allowing people to
keep that much marijuana on hand, even if it is for medical use.

Atkins said the amount of marijuana someone can keep is less important than
providing patients with some assurance they won't be arrested by local
police for using a drug recommended by their doctor. The guidelines would
provide no protection against arrest by federal agents.

A citizens' Medical Cannabis Task Force formed by the council in 2001 to
implement Proposition 215 - a 1996 ballot measure that allowed the medical
use of marijuana but set no guidelines - has recommended that sick people be
allowed to keep up to three pounds of marijuana upon a doctor's
recommendation.

"There is room for compromise," said Juliana Humphrey, head of the task
force.

Humphrey said the task force recommended three pounds because that is about
a one-year supply for someone using the typical dosage recommended by
doctors - three to five cigarettes per day. She said patients need a year's
supply at once because marijuana has only one growing season in San Diego.

Critics oppose the guidelines, saying they send a message to young people
that using marijuana is acceptable in San Diego.

"This is drug legalization," said John Redman, executive director of the San
Diego Prevention Coalition. "If you increase availability, increase access,
you will increase substance abuse. If you decrease the perception of risk
you will increase use. These guidelines do both."

Council adoption of the guidelines is far from certain, with five votes
needed to pass the plan. The council is tentatively scheduled to review the
proposal Feb. 4.

The council's Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee voted 4-1 in
October to recommend that the full council approve the guidelines. The
committee's makeup has since changed. Brian Maienschein, who voted against
the guidelines in the committee, was appointed chairman in December by Mayor
Dick Murphy.

Elected in November, Councilmen Charles Lewis and Michael Zucchet said they
haven't made up their minds on the guidelines.

Zucchet said, "I do support the city doing something to follow the will of
the voters with Proposition 215." But he said he wasn't certain how much
marijuana someone should be able to keep or who should be allowed to grow
it.

Lewis said he supports medical marijuana in concept but was troubled by the
task force recommendation on allowing patients up to three pounds.

Councilman Scott Peters, who voted for a trial needle-exchange program for
intravenous drug users as a health measure, said he opposes the medical
marijuana guidelines in their current form.

Peters said the medical community was solidly behind the needle exchange
program as a way to reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases.

But he said doctors are divided on the value of medical marijuana.

"It's my job to look out for the quality of life of people in my district,
and I don't see how this proposal helps support that," Peters said.