NEW SYSTEM EASES ACCESS TO MEDICAL POT

It just got easier to identify yourself with The City's medical marijuana
movement.

Starting Friday, residents with a doctor's note and $25 can obtain an
identification card from the San Francisco Department of Public Health that
shows they are legitimate pot smokers.

City officials and medical marijuana advocates - who planned to celebrate
the launching of the program by gathering Friday morning at the health
department at 101 Grove St. - say people who need the substance also need to
be free of police scrutiny.

"This is such a positive step to be recognized by a city government," said
Jane Weirick, director of the San Francisco Patients Resource Center, who
uses marijuana to help her deal with a degenerative disc disorder.

"We should do anything we can that makes it easier for patients to be
recognized as legitimate. This is a way we can say, "Hey, this is real. This
is valid.' And it's time for law enforcement to start seeing that this is
valid."

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors - led by chief sponsor Mark Leno -
approved the ID card program in January, extending it to patients who have a
doctor's OK as well as their primary caregivers.

The voluntary program is another step in instituting Proposition 215, which
California voters passed in 1996 and which allows people suffering from such
illnesses as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma to possess marijuana legally.

Advocates have also lauded San Francisco's ID program for its
confidentiality. The cards will show the person's photo, but not his or her
name or address. The Health Department is not keeping a list of names or
filing application documents, but rather will keep only a serial number and
a corresponding expiration date.

"This is very secure for the patients," Weirick said. "It's nice to see the
community being treated legitimately. For a long time people scoffed and
said this was Cheech and Chong medicine. But now we're being validated. This
is the kind of thing that keeps a lot of us in this movement." A handful of
other local jurisdictions already have similar programs in place, among them
Oakland, Arcata and Mendocino County.