PATIENTS WITH POT

State Moves Slowly On Medical Marijuana

The California Supreme Court last week usefully tidied up one small corner
of the medical marijuana mess. It ruled that state voters meant what they
said in 1996 when they legalized pot use by seriously ill people who've got
authorization from their doctors. Now, with the court having done its job,
it falls to Gov. Gray Davis finally to clean up the rest of the confusion
about implementing the notoriously fuzzy Proposition 215, the medical
marijuana measure.

The court's decision came in the case of a diabetic, blind Tuolumne County
man who was arrested for growing and using marijuana under a doctor's
order. In a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Ronald George, the court
ruled that Proposition 215 gives people arrested for medical marijuana use
or cultivation limited immunity from prosecution.

The court ruled that patients have a right to seek dismissal of the charges
prior to trial by showing that they are seriously ill and have a doctor's
written or oral prescription for marijuana. And if a case moves to trial,
patients need only create reasonable doubt about whether they had been
prescribed marijuana in appropriate amounts. "As a result of (Proposition
215), the possession and cultivation of marijuana is no more criminal -- so
long as its conditions are satisfied -- than the possession and acquisition
of any prescription drug with a physician's prescription," the court found.
Unfortunately, that sensible reading of voters' intent isn't sufficient by
itself to clear up the confusion that surrounds the implementation of
Proposition 215. For one thing, marijuana use is still against federal law
and U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft seems determined to use scarce federal
resources to go after patients and doctors in states where voters have
approved medical marijuana.

Another problem for law enforcement is identifying which people qualify for
medical marijuana and how much of the drug they can reasonably possess. The
Legislature is ready to put in place a reasonable regulatory scheme to deal
with those questions. SB 187, by Sens. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, and
Maurice Johannessen, R-Redding, would set up a system of voluntary
identification cards for patients authorized to use marijuana and establish
by regulation the amount of the drug they could possess without danger of
arrest.

Unfortunately, the bill, which is supported by the backers of Proposition
215 and law enforcement, has been held in the Senate because Davis told the
author last September that more time was needed to study the issue. Davis
now has had nearly a year to bone up, but a spokesman for the governor last
week again described the bill as "premature."

In fact, this kind of measure is badly overdue. The court and Legislature
have done their duty to make Proposition 215 workable; now it's the time
for the governor to do his.