200 CALL BOYCOTT OF ACT UP/SF

Hoping to undercut the economic strength of a small band of HIV/AIDS
denialists using the name ACT UP/San Francisco, local activists have called
for a boycott of the group's Market Street medical marijuana dispensary.

"ACT UP/San Francisco is blocking access to life-saving information, and
we're going to hold them accountable," declared Rebecca Hensler, one of the
organizers of a newly formed coalition called AIDS Activists Against
Violence and Lies.

Hensler was joined last Thursday, September 21 on the steps of City Hall by
other members of the first local AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power founded
here in 1988, as well as other AIDS activists and workers and a few
candidates for local office in support of the boycott.

Some 200 individuals and a few AIDS groups have signed onto the boycott,
published last week in a full page ad in the Bay Area Reporter and in a Los
Angeles-based biweekly gay newsmagazine. The ad also calls for individuals
to contact local officials to "demand that they prosecute fully all violent
behavior, and protect HIV educators from personal harassment and
intimidation."

Survive AIDS, one of the principal organizers of the boycott, maintains an
alternative list of medical marijuana dispensaries on its Web site at
www.surviveaids.org.

"They lie to the community and the media, and they personally stalk people
who take a stand against them," said Hensler.

"The message is: don't harm yourself. Don't harm the community," said
Survive AIDS' Hank Wilson, a member of the early ACT UP and candidate for
District 6 supervisor.

"Clearly our crimes continue to be our vocal advocacy to inform the public,
and most importantly, the lawmakers of the land, of the total sham of the
HIV=AIDS hypothesis," responded an ACT UP/SF member in an e-mail following
the press conference.