MARIJUANA OFFERED OUTSIDE CITY HALL

Activist Prods S.D. On Medical Pot Rules

Medical marijuana activist Steve McWilliams handed out free samples of the
drug outside San Diego City Hall yesterday to people who had a doctor's
note saying they needed it.

McWilliams said he was trying to draw attention to what he said was the
city's delay in issuing identification cards to medical marijuana users. He
said the city also needs to adopt guidelines on who should be allowed to
grow marijuana for sick people and how much they could legally grow.

"We don't ever seem to be able to get on the schedule, to get on the
agenda. Other things come up," McWilliams said. "People need the medicine."

City Councilwoman Tony Atkins, who heads the council's Public Safety and
Neighborhood Services Committee, said the committee will act on the
proposed guidelines and ID card program at an Oct. 16 hearing. The full
council also must vote to approve both the ID cards and the guidelines.

McWilliams said he also wanted to show solidarity with Santa Cruz medical
marijuana activists and Santa Cruz City Council members, who gave away
marijuana samples in their city yesterday to protest a federal Drug
Enforcement Administration raid last month on a Santa Cruz farm that raised
marijuana for medical use. Lawyers for the farmers said they were told that
the U.S. attorney had declined to prosecute.

Although the state legislation was approved in 1996 legalizing medical
marijuana in California, federal law prohibits the use of the drug for any
purpose.

Current city practice in San Diego is to allow people to use marijuana
without arrest if they have a letter from a doctor. The guidelines are
meant to make it easier for police to identify medical marijuana users and
clarify how much of the drug they can legally grow or possess. There were
no police present yesterday when McWilliams gave away half-gram samples of
marijuana.

Fallbrook cancer patient Nicholas Hauff said he drove to San Diego after
hearing that McWilliams would be giving out marijuana. He said he uses the
drug under a doctor's recommendation.

"We're just trying to get by in life," Hauff said. "If I was on regular
medicine, I'd be addicted to pain killers."

The San Diego ID card program and guidelines are being developed by a
citizens Medical Cannabis Task Force to implement Proposition 215, the
state measure allowing the medical use of marijuana. The ID card program is
meant to allow sick people to use marijuana on their doctor's
recommendation without fear of arrest.

McWilliams had been a member of the task force but resigned because he said
it was too slow. He said patients who hoped to be able to grow their own
marijuana under the guidelines during the summer growing season have had to
scramble to find other sources of the medicine because of the city's delay.