MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA MAY FIND SAFE HAVEN IN CITY

The City Council took a small step on Tuesday night toward the legal sale
of marijuana for medical purposes, saying it was time to try to help
patients buy the drug without fear.

In a 4-3 vote, on the motion of Councilman Tom Roberts, the council agreed
to consider allowing medical marijuana centers or clubs or some other
measure so that patients who use marijuana and grow it in their back yards
would not wind up under arrest.

"I believe we should see what can be done so we don't criminalize our own
citizens," Roberts said.

The council majority said it was important to implement Prop. 215, an
initiative approved by the voters of California in 1996, allowing seriously
ill patients and their caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for
medical treatment, as long as it is recommended by a physician.

In Santa Barbara, the vote for the measure was 67 percent in favor.

The Compassionate Use Act, however, made no provisions for medical
marijuana centers where patients could legally purchase the drug; and it
did not decriminalize the cultivation, use and transport of the marijuana
by non-patients.

In the ensuing confusion, and with no direction from the state Legislature,
some cancer and AIDS patients who use marijuana to ward off nausea or
induce an appetite have been arrested. There were three such cases in Santa
Barbara in 1999, police said. The charges were dropped and none of those
charged went to jail.

On Tuesday, a number of members and supporters of the Compassionate
Cannabis Center, a local nonprofit group, asked the council to act now so
that authorized patients and caregivers could obtain marijuana more easily.

Susan Baumgart, an artist in the UCSB geography department, told the
council that, ill and suffering from the side effects of chemotherapy, she
had turned to marijuana for the first time in her life and found relief.
The drug, which she obtained through a friend, helped her eat and sleep
again, she said, and she was able to return to work.

"I'm one of those law-abiding citizens, but I have two sons and I didn't
want to die," Baumgart said. "I had never smoked dope. It was horrible and
exhausting to take it. But it allowed me to keep going through very
difficult circumstances."

In addition to cancer, the diseases listed in the Compassionate Use Act in
connection with therapeutical marijuana include anorexia, AIDS, chronic
pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis and migraine headaches.

Council members Gil Garcia, Marty Blum and Mayor Harriet Miller joined
Roberts in asking the council's three-member ordinance committee to
consider allowing medical marijuana clubs. Miller said she had voted for
Proposition 215 and was irked that the state Legislature had not dealt with
the question of how patients could legally purchase the drug.

"The ordinance committee may not be able to come up with anything," Miller
warned the audience. "The Legislature needs to face up to its responsibility."

Miller asked the committee not to start from scratch but to consider only
those ordinances approved elsewhere in the state. The Santa Cruz City
Council, for example, recently allowed "medical marijuana provider
associations" to cultivate and sell the drug to qualified patients.

The associations could include nonprofit groups, collectives or individuals
not involved in the illegal sale of marijuana for profit. Their selling
price would cover only the production costs, including hourly wages. The
Santa Cruz ordinance, though it is the law, has not yet been implemented.

On Tuesday, Santa Barbara Councilmen Gregg Hart, Dan Secord and Rusty
Fairly voted against further consideration of the medical marijuana
question. Secord, a physician, said that the city was spending about
$250,000 a year on drug education for youngsters and should not be sending
a conflicting message by permitting the establishment of medical marijuana
centers.

Fairly cited a long list of medical organizations, including the American
Medical Association and the American Cancer Society, that reject the use of
marijuana as a medical therapy. Quoting from their literature, Fairly said
that marijuana has been shown to be a health hazard and cause schizophrenia.