TOWN HALL MEETING DRAWS MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEBATE

Medicinal marijuana patients are ridiculed, harassed and humiliated in
Shasta County, a Redding marijuana advocate complained at Assemblyman Dick
Dickerson's town hall meeting Wednesday night.

The result is that some very ill people are too frightened to use the
treatment they think works best for them, Rick Levin told Dickerson, R-Redding.

But though Dickerson acknowledged that he thinks state government should
address the medical marijuana issue with more studies, he complained that
the state's Compassionate Use Act has "caused a lot of problems because of
the way it was drafted."

Adopted in 1996, the initiative allows marijuana use with a doctor's
recommendation, but sets no rules for the numbers of plants or amount of
processed marijuana a patient can have.

The resulting "guidelines" adopted by Shasta County's sheriff's office and
police departments break state law, Levin argued.

Levin and several other members of the Shasta Patients' Alliance, a medical
marijuana advocacy group, were among about 100 people who attended
Dickerson's meeting at The Mall in downtown Redding.

Other audience members peppered Levin with questions about why he couldn't
take other medications to quell the pain from his spinal injuries and some
sneered when he explained that he can't tolerate narcotic pain killers.

Dickerson cut off the exchange after about five minutes, telling the
audience: "That's all we're going to discuss here tonight unless you want
to talk about marijuana all night."

Dickerson retired seven years ago after a 30-year law enforcement career
that ended with command of the Shasta Interagency Narcotics Task Force. "I
continue to disapprove of it (medicinal marijuana) because I don't know the
long-term effects," he told Levin before ending the marijuana discussion.

Other members of the patients' group did not speak and the questions
returned to water plans, laws regulating group homes, timber, air quality
and even Social Security — a federal issue.

Dickerson, joined on the dais by Shasta County Supervisor David Kehoe and
Redding Police captain Steve Davidson, said that he and his staff will have
held 15 town hall meetings by the end of the month.

Reporter Maline Hazle can be reached at 225-8266 or at mhazle@redding.com.