POT CLUBS DEFIANT--AND PACKED

SAN FRANCISCO--From the smoky confines of California's medical
marijuana clubs to the Sacramento office of the state's highest law
enforcement agent, confusion reigned Monday in the wake of the U.S.
Supreme Court decision prohibiting pot use by sick people.

Telephones rang unabated at the state's cannabis buyers organizations,
with AIDS and cancer sufferers wondering whether their sources would
dry up. More than 30 fearful patients lined up outside one club here
in California's medical marijuana capital to stockpile the drug or buy
plants so they could grow their own supplies at home.

Defiant advocates statewide reassured medical marijuana users that the
drug would be available no matter what. But many providers spent the
day in conference with attorneys. And they questioned just how the
federal decision would affect operations in California, which has
dozens of medical marijuana clubs and as many as 30,000 people who use
pot on doctors' orders.

"We're a little rattled this morning," said Scott Imler, president of
the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in West Hollywood. "As of
today at 11 a.m., I opened the door and let the members in, today
anyway. I guess we're in violation of the Supreme Court order. I don't
know what we'll do on intermediate and longer term."

Four hours later, after consulting with his facility's board of
directors and its lawyer, Imler was more adamant. "The co-op will
continue in its mission," he announced at a news conference. "We will
continue to cooperatively cultivate marijuana for our own medicinal
needs."

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer would not say how his office will
respond to the high court's decision. Further review will be required,
he said, before "any conclusions are reached or recommendations are
made about California law."

Still, Lockyer said, he was disappointed by the decision and sorry
that the high court "was unable to respect California's historic role
as a 'laboratory' for good public policy and a leader in the effort to
help sick and dying residents who have no hope for relief other than
through medical marijuana."

California's Proposition 215 was the first of nine state laws that
permit patients to grow and use small amounts of marijuana for medical
reasons. Advocates say that marijuana offers relief to those who
suffer from AIDS-related wasting syndrome, chemotherapy nausea,
glaucoma and other ailments.

The Supreme Court did not decide Monday whether Proposition 215--which
has always conflicted with federal anti-drug laws--was constitutional.
Instead, it said that federal law absolutely prohibits giving
marijuana to sick people.

The Supreme Court ruling sprang from federal prosecution of six
marijuana clubs in Northern California, which pot advocates estimate
has more than three-quarters of such establishments in the state.

At Californians Helping Alleviate Medical Problems near San
Francisco's Castro District, patients who worried that clubs would be
shut down jammed the facility and spilled out onto the sidewalk Monday
afternoon. Club officials did not return a phone call for comment, but
members described a tense and panicky atmosphere.

Austin Chain, a Half Moon Bay resident who uses marijuana to alleviate
the symptoms of Crohn's disease, traveled to CHAMP to buy six plants
of his own to grow. He described the club, with its rainbow exterior,
as busier than usual and its members--himself included--as fearful.

"There's a lot of people afraid here that their supply of medication
would be cut off indefinitely," said Chain. "I've heard people say
they're calling in sick to make sure they can get a couple weeks'
supply before they have to find another source."

The mood was gloomy at the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, where
a 37-year-old patron named Tom said he would not know where to turn if
the facility were shut down. As an anorexic, Tom has a doctor's
authorization for marijuana to help him eat. As a father, he said, he
is uncomfortable growing pot at home.

"There is no answer except for the clubs," he said. The decision, he
said, is like "we're diabetic and they've taken away our insulin. It's
medicine I need to live a natural, normal life just like everybody
else. It feels like unjust harassment."

Sean Kerrigan, who has worked at the cannabis club for the last four
years, said the club expects to stay open "for now." Asked about the
future, he heaved a woeful sigh and said, "We'll have to wait and see.

"We expect the Feds to say, 'Close or else we'll arrest you,' "
Kerrigan said. "But we'll wait until then." Kerrigan said he expected
federal authorities to act quickly to shut down the club: "We're
pretty big fish up here."

In fact, the Marin club was one of six sued by the federal government
in January 1998 in an action that led to Monday's decision. Three of
the targeted clubs have closed, and the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative has stopped dispensing marijuana.

At the Ukiah Cannabis Club, the sixth facility, director Marvin
Lehrman won't say if his organization cultivates and distributes. But
he does not expect federal authorities to knock at his door any time
soon.

"It is possible if the Feds want to take action on this," Lehrman
said. "On the other hand, we are an information center as far as the
Feds are concerned. We are under an injunction not to distribute, just
like Oakland. We do everything we can to help our members in their
need."

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Jose Martinez in Los
Angeles also said his agency hasn't targeted marijuana clubs and has
no immediate plans to do so unless they come across one that operates
on a huge volume level.

"We don't deal on the local distribution level, like the Baggies they
sell at these clubs," Martinez said. "Our focus is on the large-scale,
multiton production and distribution organizations."

Regardless of the threat of prosecution and of the confusion and
uncertainty that roiled marijuana clubs Monday, advocates for the
drug's medicinal use said that the need exists and will be filled.

Marlene Rasnick, a board member of the West Hollywood club who suffers
from ovarian cancer, said smoking marijuana has "helped me enormously
to survive to this moment. It helps me with nausea and pain, and it
promotes appetite and elevates the spirit."

Floyd Ferris Landrath is a spokesman for the American Anti-Prohibition
League based in Portland, Ore., one of the eight other states where
the medical use of marijuana has been sanctioned.

"You have to go back to Congress to change this," he said. "If
anything, [the decision] will make more people aware of how important
it is to change the law."

Dale Gieringer, California coordinator for the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the decision "doesn't make any
difference at all."

"All the clubs are operating today the way they did yesterday. . . .
The federal government can't stop your kid from getting pot at school.
It's not going to stop seriously ill patients from getting medical
marijuana in California."

Setback for States

California's 1996 state initiative gave seriously ill patients the
right to obtain marijuana for pain relief. Similar measures have since
been adopted in a number of other states. On Monday, the Supreme Court
ruled that Federal law prohibits such uses.