CARD-CARRYING MEDICAL POT USERS LIKE THE PROTECTION

No Name Or Address Listed To Protect Confidentiality

Joyful marijuana activists gathered on the San Francisco Health
Department's steps yesterday to show off their new, anonymous ID cards -- a
San Francisco first -- that allow them to buy pot with no hassle from the cops.

The enigmatic cards are "another brick in the path paving the way to legal
use of medicinal marijuana," said Wayne Justmann, the man who got the very
first one.

The new San Francisco program was created to make it easier for patients to
show that they qualify for medicinal marijuana. Patients submit a form from
their doctor and a $25 fee. Clerks verify that a licensed doctor signed the
form before issuing the card, which is valid up to two years.

The non-ID identification cards are unlike any previous kind of ID. They do
not bear the name or address of the holder, a provision insisted upon by
marijuana activists to protect confidentiality. The application forms are
handed out at the clerk's window covered with blank sheets of paper.

The doctor's letter is returned to the applicant, a photocopy of it is
destroyed, and no records are kept by the Health Department.

"No (original) records are destroyed and no records are kept," said Dr.
Mitchell Katz, the director of public health.

Twelve of the plastic cards have been issued under the new program.
Justmann, the director of the San Francisco Patients Resource Center, which
sells cannabis to patients at its Divisadero Street office, said he already
used his new card to buy an eighth of ounce of marijuana for $50 to help
relieve the side effects of drugs he must take to control his HIV infection.

A handful of marijuana users picked up their cards yesterday from the
clerk's window on the first floor, the same counter where birth and death
notices are issued.

"This card recognizes the right of every medicinal cannabis patient to use
cannabis in a safe and effective manner," said Supervisor Mark Leno, who
sponsored the ordinance that created the cards. "The police need to
understand this card deserves 100 percent respect."

Assistant Police Chief Earl Sanders pledged that officers will recognize
the card and not arrest users of medicinal marijuana who have them.

"This is not an invitation to come to San Francisco and smoke marijuana,''
Sanders said. "Police officers are bound to uphold the law, and Proposition
215, the last time I read it, is the law."

Proposition 215, passed by California voters in 1996, allows patients to
use marijuana with a doctor's permission. The law has faced several
challenges from state and federal authorities.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan said San Francisco was "moving in the
correct direction" and vowed not to prosecute marijuana users who have
their doctor's approval, whether or not they have the new card.

"Anybody who is fair-minded has no question that marijuana is a medical
agent that greatly reduces suffering," Hallinan said.

E-mail Steve Rubenstein at rubensteins@sfgate.com.