POT CLUBS FOLDING

U.S. Raids, Threats Shut Them Down Around The State

It is now a familiar scene from San Francisco to San Diego, from the
Central Valley to the inner cities - federal agents raiding marijuana
gardens and shutting down organizations that dispense the drug.

One after another, under the threat of arrest or imprisonment, cannabis
club operators across the state have closed their doors or stopped
providing their wares to sick or dying patients.

Barely a handful of dispensaries remain, and they are afraid.

Federal officials stepped up their crackdown on pot collaboratives after
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that there is no medical necessity
for growing marijuana for patients.

Since that decision, the federal government has raided eight California
cannabis clubs, including the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative,
once a major dispenser of medical marijuana in the southern part of the state.

Drug agents say they are enforcing the federal law that prohibits the
possession or distribution of dangerous narcotics.

But critics complain that the U.S. government is trampling on states'
rights to govern themselves. California and seven other states have adopted
medical marijuana laws, despite the federal ban.

Either way, more and more patients are taking the risky step of growing
their own marijuana or buying it illegally on the street.

And even though a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that physicians
cannot be targeted by the Justice Department for prescribing marijuana,
many doctors remain skittish about writing such recommendations for their
patients.

"The federal government is winning this war without even going to court,
without testing the law legally," said Steve McWilliams, the San Diego
medical marijuana activist indicted earlier this month for illegal cultivation.

McWilliams, who faces at least five years in federal prison if he is
convicted, has stopped providing marijuana to the half-dozen or so cancer
patients and others who relied on him for pot.

So have activists in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Butte County
and other communities where federal agents seized gardens and arrested
growers in recent months.

"People are genuinely terrified right now," McWilliams said. "It has spread
like an epidemic throughout the medical marijuana community."

California voters in 1996 approved Proposition 215, which gave patients the
right to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

But the state law is vague. It does not specify how many plants are
allowed, where the drug may be smoked, or how it will be distributed.

Attorneys on both sides of the debate concede that, eventually, federal
judges will have to fully resolve the dispute.

Meanwhile, elected officials in dozens of cities and counties across the
state have been trying to find ways to implement Proposition 215 while at
the same time avoiding confrontations with federal law enforcers.

Members of a San Diego City Council committee, for example, recently
approved guidelines that allow patients to possess up to three pounds of
marijuana. At the same time, they warned that their vote does not amount to
an endorsement of pot smoking.

Despite the prohibition against marijuana under federal law, the Drug
Enforcement Administration's effort to clamp down on cannabis clubs has
been less than consistent.

Agents continue to tolerate some clubs that operate openly, but put others
out of business. They have confiscated pot gardens as large as several
hundred plants and as small as a few dozen.

They also repeat the suspicions held by their boss, DEA Administrator Asa
Hutchinson, who has said he believes there is no medical benefit from
marijuana.

"This is not about people dying of AIDS or cancer," said Donald Thornhill
Jr., spokesman for the DEA in San Diego. "Most of the people involved in
these cannabis clubs are people who are looking to get high."

DEA officials deny that there is a systematic and deliberate campaign to
curtail cannabis clubs from operating across the state.

The raids and arrests for illegal cultivation, agents say, are irregular
because of limited resources and other priorities ? such as investigating
the Arellano Felix drug cartel, which is reputed to ship tons of drugs
across the Mexican border into California.

Federal agents hope the cannabis club crackdown deters people from
distributing marijuana. "We create a risk and it keeps people out of the
drug business," Thornhill said.

Alternatives sought

But Ed Rosenthal, the Bay Area pot-growing guru who was arrested in
February on federal cultivation charges, contends that raiding clubs that
worked hard to comply with state law could promote less-diligent dispensaries.

"The riskier it is, the less likely that you'll have people who are
interested in the patient," said Rosenthal, who said he will not violate
terms of his own release by continuing to grow marijuana.

In the meantime, patients who say they rely on marijuana to ease the
effects of AIDS treatment, chemotherapy or other sicknesses are scrambling
for alternatives to the increasingly rare cannabis clubs.

They take their chances cultivating small gardens or buying marijuana from
strangers.

"I try to keep a low profile," said one AIDS patient from Ocean Beach who
grows his own marijuana rather than risk dealing with a cannabis club. "I
don't want to be next on their list."

Rod Johnson, 62, is a terminal cancer patient from Chula Vista. His source
for marijuana dried up when agents uprooted McWilliams' garden last month.
Now he relies on friends to supply him with what he says is the only
medicine that keeps up his appetite ? and spirits.

"I wasn't born and raised being a cannabis enthusiast ? that was taboo. But
I know how cannabis has affected my situation," Johnson said. "It makes it
more difficult when Steve is not my care provider.

"It's available," but you're not dealing "with people you can trust."

Glaucoma patient Evan Keliher of Rancho Bernardo smokes pot every day. He
used to grow plants in a cooperative garden run by McWilliams, but shied
away from that after being hassled by police.

"I buy it on the street," said Keliher, 71. "You just have to know who to
see and where."

Abided by state law

Many Proposition 215 activists worked tenaciously to abide by the state law.

Before being raided, the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative had
registered as a nonprofit, paid taxes and had even filed a request with the
DEA to dispense marijuana, said Scott Imler, president of the club.

Members of the cooperative secured a loan backed by the city of West
Hollywood to buy their building.

They continued to expand their client base and by last year were dispensing
marijuana to almost 1,000 people. Now they turn away people seeking marijuana.

"We were not prepared to sneak around in the shadows doing what we had done
aboveboard before," said Imler, who is waiting to find out whether he will
be indicted by a federal grand jury.

Three smaller clubs in Los Angeles also folded during the past year ?
either voluntarily or following raids, Imler said. Now, he steers patients
to other cities because no one he knows still dispenses in Los Angeles.

Dozens of cannabis information and resource centers remain open up and down
the state, but only a handful continue to distribute marijuana. Most of
those are in the Bay Area, where the medical marijuana movement took root.

The San Francisco Patients Cooperative is one of them.

Six days a week, patients stop by the center to play bingo, watch
television and buy pot. With proper paperwork, patients can purchase
marijuana for $9 a gram.

Founder Wayne Justmann said the federal crackdown during the past year has
forced too many patients to find marijuana on the street, or do without.

Physicians wary

"I'm so sorry for San Diego and other cities" where clubs have been raided,
said Justmann, who is 57 and has been HIV-positive for 15 years. "I thank
God I'm in San Francisco, where we have a mayor and board of supervisors
that support these patients."

In San Diego, where the city expects to begin issuing identification cards
to 3,000 or so medical marijuana patients early next year, very few
physicians are willing to discuss recommending the drug publicly, let alone
writing letters for patients.

Not even the doctor who signed McWilliams' recommendation would agree to an
interview.

Oncologist James Sinclair is not so shy. He still signs letters for certain
cancer patients who say smoking marijuana reduces the effects of
chemotherapy and stimulates their appetite.

"I try to back away from talking about how they actually acquire the
product," Sinclair said. "My notes say 'may use' ? not 'obtain,' like a
true prescription."

Dr. Theresa Yang, who runs a chronic pain clinic in Santee, stopped writing
recommendations because she thinks the state law is being abused, but she
also worries about unwanted scrutiny from the federal government.

"Hopefully, some day they'll resolve all this," she said.