THERE'S ROOM AT THE INN FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE

The owners of a new bed-and-breakfast in Santa Cruz have no
reservations about accommodating those with a note from their physician

SANTA CRUZ -- It looks like a traditional bed-and-breakfast, at first.
In the grand tradition, it stands proudly Victorian, with fancy
flourishes, quirky nooks and painstakingly picked 19th century antiques.

But the Compassion Flower Inn also boasts a large mosaic marijuana
leaf at the top of the path to the front steps, walls stenciled with
marijuana leaves in the "hemp bedroom" and an elaborate marijuana
mosaic in the tile surrounding the whirlpool in the lovers' suite.

As the nation's first bed-and-breakfast inn catering to medical
marijuana users, the Compassion Flower Inn is receiving more attention
for its opening than a five-star hotel. The co-owners, Andrea Tischler
and Maria Mallek-Tischler, have spent so much time fielding calls in
recent weeks, that Wednesday, on the day before their big opening
party, they and a small army of volunteers were still fussing with
finishing touches.

"We don't really understand all the attention," said Tischler, a
longtime proponent of the medical use of marijuana for serious
illnesses. "We had this idea to create something beautiful and do
something for the medical marijuana community. We don't really think
it's such a big deal."

In tolerant Santa Cruz (population: 52,000), socialists become mayor
and law enforcement has long looked the other way when it comes to
prosecuting medical marijuana users. The opening of the Compassion
Flower Inn is part of the message the city is sending the rest of the
country: The time has come for the legal use of medical marijuana.

Last week the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved an
ordinance making the city the first in the nation to legalize the
production and sale of medical marijuana without a doctor's
prescription, as long as it is sold at cost or given away.

The ordinance, which takes effect May 11, is Santa Cruz's attempt to
put in effect Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative that
California voters approved in 1996. After the state initiative passed,
then-Attorney General Dan Lungren, as well as the federal government
- -- whose position is that any use of marijuana is illegal -- continued
to prosecute those who grew or used the drug for medicinal purposes,
including numerous medical marijuana clubs in Northern California.

The medical marijuana movement was essentially shut down through
lawsuits by state and federal officials. That situation has eased
since Bill Lockyer became attorney general last year. Lockyer
appointed a task force that issued recommendations for statewide
guidelines on accomplishing the goals of Prop. 215. The guidelines
became a state Senate bill, which was tabled last fall when Gov. Gray
Davis threatened to veto it.

In September, a federal appeals court permitted a cannabis club to
continue operating in Oakland, which passed an ordinance in 1998
allowing the use of medicinal marijuana under certain guidelines.

Now, Santa Cruz has gone further -- allowing the medical use of
marijuana with a doctor's note certifying that the patient has a
condition for which marijuana is considered helpful. Those conditions
include AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, anorexia, chronic
pain, arthritis and spastic diseases.

The hope, said Mike Rotkin, a City Council member who helped draft the
ordinance, is that Santa Cruz's law could serve as a model for other
cities and states that have approved the use of medical marijuana only
to find themselves in conflict with federal law enforcers.

Santa Cruz's law protects doctors who have been threatened with the
loss of their licenses by the federal government if they prescribe
medical marijuana. It allows them to write a note stating the patient
suffers from a serious condition that marijuana has been known to alleviate.

Santa Cruz's law also makes the growing of marijuana contingent on its
being sold for the cost of production or given away so that the
medical marijuana user does not have to resort to buying the drug for
prices sold on the street, said Valerie Corral, director of the
Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a 225-member collective in
Santa Cruz. Corral, who uses marijuana to alleviate grand mal seizures
suffered from epilepsy, said that members of the collective paid $2
for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, compared with $50 to $85 on
the street. "This ordinance creates a closer, compassionate community
in Santa Cruz," she said.

Tischler and Mallek-Tischler became active proponents of the legal use
of marijuana for the seriously ill in the '80s in San Francisco as
friends dying of AIDS found some relief from the drug. The two helped
found a cannabis buyers club in Santa Cruz (one of a half-dozen clubs
shut down by the federal government) and lobbied for the statewide
initiative, which passed in Santa Cruz with 76 percent of the vote.

It has taken three years to turn a falling down house into the
Compassion Flower Inn, including a full year of Mallek-Tischler's
talents as an artist. She created all the faux marble treatments on
the doors and touches throughout the house, as well as all the
watercolors on the walls, the mosaics in and outside, and the gardens,
with their abundance of passion flowers of different strains.

Tischler, who spent 25 years renovating Victorians in San Francisco,
supervised the project.

Guests in the inn who use medical marijuana must have a doctor's note.
Cigarette smokers, on the other hand, are relegated to the front porch.

"You know," said Tischler, as she pointed out the green and cream
color scheme of the exterior, "anyone can stay here. Anyone with an
open heart and mind."