CALAVERAS NAMES MEDICAL MARIJUANA PANEL

SAN ANDREAS -- A panel topheavy with health and law enforcement officials
was appointed Monday to develop guidelines for medical marijuana use in
Calaveras County.

One known medical marijuana user was named to the 12 member task force,
which includes five doctors, two pharmacists, two members of the county
Health Services Agency, Sheriff Dennis Downum, Angels Camp Police Chief
Bill Nuttall and District Attorney Peter Smith.

The task force was created on the same day San Francisco supervisors
adopted a plan to issue identification cards to medical marijuana users. A
handful of of the California counties have put in place medical marijuana
ordinances.

David Jack, an Angels Camp resident and medical marijuana user who brought
the medical marijuana issue to the supervisors last month said the county
needs guidelines because people with the right to use marijuana under
California's Proposition 215 and law enforcement alike are "living in
confusion." Jack will be on the task force.

Jack asked supervisors to include more users and fewer law enforcement
officials. Jack Shields, who called himself the only recognized medical
marijuana patient in the county, agreed. Shields said the issue was a
medical one.

Proposition 215, passed by voters in 1996, made it legal for people
suffering from certain serious medical conditions to use marijuana if they
have a doctors recommendation or approval.

But the ambiguities remain about how the law should be implemented, and
marijuana use and possession remains a federal crime.

Jeanne M. Boyce, the county's Health Services Agency director, said the
panel's makeup is designed to promote "frank, qualitive discussion among
the interested parties."

Supervisor Terri Baily and Paul Stein voted against the task force
appointments because they said the state-not individual cities and
counties-should formulate guidelines.

Stein, who admitted having a problem with the concept of medical marijuana
users growing their own medicine, said it's "absolute folly" for county
workers to devote time to create "something that is flawed from the
beginning."

Supervisor Merita Callaway, who supported the appointments along with
Supervisor Lucy Thein and board Chairman Tom Tryon, called the panel a
"good cross-section of people."

Downum said before the meeting that "universal state guidelines" are needed
to help law enforcement cope with Prop. 215. In lieu of those, though, he
said he'd like to see guidelines that he an District Attorney Smith can
agree upon and can be shared with the public.

"It doesn't do us a bit of good to arrest someone if the district attorney
doesn't feel comfortable moving ahead with prosecution," he said.

Downnum doesn't mask his feelings for Prop. 215, however.

"It's just a horrendous joke," he said. "It's pathetic. And without state
guidelines, everyone is kind of groping around."

"I truly believe society needs to determine if they want to keep marijuana
illegal or not."

Smith said he believes Prop. 215 guidelines should come from the state but
added that he's willing to work with the task force.

"My biggest concern is that I'm not a medical doctor, so how much
(marijuana) a person should possess for a particular disease is beyond my
expertise," he said. "And I don't want guidelines to be an invitation for
everyone interested in growing and using marijuana to come to Calaveras
County, either."

That hasn't proven to be the case in Mendicino County, which has a policy
that allows bona fide medical marijuana users who are first checked out by
the county's public health department to possess 12 immature marijuana
plants, six flowering plants or two pounds of processed marijuana.

The public health department must verify that a prescriptive user has a
doctors recommendation before an identification card is issued, said Norman
L. Vroman, Mendicino County's district attorney.

"It's alleviated a lot of problems," said Vroman. "It's given law
enforcement some guidelines. And it's stopped my phone from ringing off the
hook."