WEST HOLLYWOOD TAKES SYMBOLIC STAND ON POT

West Hollywood has declared itself a sanctuary for medical users of
marijuana. Which changes nothing.

Laws still prohibit the medical use of cannabis in California. The Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which serves West Hollywood, said
Tuesday that it will continue to enforce those laws.

"Absolutely," said Deputy Scott Butler, a department spokesman. On Monday
night, the West Hollywood City Council unanimously passed a "symbolic
resolution" proclaiming the unconventional town "a sanctuary for the
cultivation, distribution and use of medicinal marijuana."

The council's action came six weeks after the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration shut down the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in the city.

Federal agents raided the center on Santa Monica Boulevard on Oct. 25,
uprooting 400 marijuana plants, seizing indoor growing lights and hauling
off computers listing the names and medical histories of the center's 3,000
then-current and former patients.

The raid angered those who claim that their health depends on pot
cigarettes and marijuana muffins. And it outraged West Hollywood city
officials, who had cultivated good relations with the center.

"We have no power to overturn the federal enforcement actions, but we are
profoundly distressed by what the DEA did," said Councilman Jeffrey Prang,
who wrote the resolution.

"We were expressing our views about the misguided policies and actions of
the federal government. Obviously, what we did was more symbolic than real."

West Hollywood's nonprofit, member-supported cannabis cooperative was
established in 1996, when voters approved California's Proposition 215, an
initiative permitting small amounts of marijuana to be grown for medicinal
purposes.

But the state measure conflicted with federal drug laws. Six months ago, in
a case involving Northern California cannabis clubs, the U.S. Supreme Court
issued an 8-0 ruling largely invalidating the state initiative.