S.D. CITY PANEL OKS MEDICAL POT RULES

Guidelines Need Council Approval

Medical marijuana guidelines that would allow sick people to keep up to 3
pounds of the drug and grow up to 72 plants for their own use was approved
by a San Diego City Council committee yesterday.

"I believe this is right. I believe it's right for suffering people to have
some relief," said Councilman George Stevens.

The guidelines, adopted in a 4-1 vote by the Public Safety and Neighborhood
Services Committee, also would allow caregivers who grow marijuana for up
to six patients to keep as much as 12 pounds of marijuana and grow as many
as 90 plants.

Councilman Brian Maienschein without comment voted against the guidelines,
which must be approved by the full council to take effect. Committee
chairman Toni Atkins said her goal was to bring the matter to the council
in December.

The guidelines were recommended by a 12-member Medical Cannabis Task Force
created by the City Council in 2001 to implement Proposition 215, a 1996
state measure allowing the medical use of marijuana.

The council committee, following Atkins' advice, modified the task force's
recommendations to include provisions against smoking marijuana in public,
near schools, recreation centers or youth centers, or while operating a
motor vehicle or a boat.

Minors, people on parole or probation and those convicted of a serious or
violent felony could not become caregivers, under the committee's action.

The guidelines would be in place as a 24-month pilot program, after which
they would be reviewed by the council, under the committee measure.

Atkins and others warned that the city guidelines would not protect
patients from arrest by federal drug agents, who have been cracking down on
medical marijuana users. San Diego activist Steve McWilliams, a former
member of the city task force, was arrested last week on federal drug
charges. Any use of marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Atkins said she hoped that city adoption of the guidelines would help lead
to a resolution of the conflict between state and federal law.

"I certainly hope the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) isn't going to
make hundreds of agents available to ferret out medical marijuana
patients," Atkins said.

More than 100 people jammed the committee hearing, which lasted about three
hours.

Critics, including police Chief David Bejarano and the San Diego Prevention
Coalition, have said the guidelines were too vague, allow people to keep
and grow too much and imply that the city condones the use of marijuana for
any purpose.

No one from the Police Department testified at the hearing. But Bejarano,
in a memo to Atkins, which she made public yesterday, said allowing people
to grow and keep large quantities of marijuana would "attract theft and
violence to neighborhoods and place patients and caregivers as well as the
neighbors at risk."

The police chief also said only doctors should decide on a case-by-case
basis how much marijuana each patient should have. In establishing a set
amount of marijuana patients could keep without fear of arrest, Bejarano
said the city would "promote abuse by criminals rather than compassionate
use by the seriously ill."

The guidelines and a proposed city identification-card program expected to
begin early next year are intended to give patients, those who care for
them and police a sense of how much marijuana can be legally grown and
stored, said task force chairwoman Juliana Humphrey.

Current police policy in deciding when to make an arrest is determined on a
case-by-case basis.

"The person we have kept in our sights is the patient," Humphrey said.

Cancer patient Ann Shanahan-Walsh, a task force member, said she used
marijuana with the encouragement of her oncologist to ease the side effects
of chemotherapy.

"I was not a believer until I was able to see the benefits of it,"
Shanahan-Walsh said. "It doesn't make chemotherapy any easier but it makes
it bearable."

Prevention Coalition president Dave Vialpando said the guidelines "have
way, way too much potential for abuse and they need to be tightened up."

Among other things, Vialpando said 3 pounds was too much marijuana for
someone to keep. Humphrey said 3 pounds was about a year's supply. She said
patients needed the ability to keep that much because marijuana grown
outdoors has one harvest season per year.

But Vialpando said doctors don't prescribe a year's supply of other drugs
at a time and marijuana shouldn't be an exception.