BAY AREA MEDICAL POT USERS TO BE ISSUED ID CARDS

San Francisco Adopts Ordinance To Protect Ill

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco board of supervisors put its stamp of
approval Monday on a plan to issue identification cards to medical
marijuana users.

The board voted 10-1 in favor of adopting a city ordinance designed to
allow qualified cardholders to obtain high-grade pot from several San
Francisco dispensaries and dispel their fears of being arrested for
possession of drugs.

"For people who are suffering, this is a giant step because here's a
medicine that I think really, really works. Reefer madness is dead," said
Gary Farnsworth, a director at the San Francisco Patients Resource Center.
His center is one of several medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco.

The cards have yet to be designed, and no fees for them have been
determined. Mayor Willie Brown has 10 days to sign the ordinance.

"What the card does is to certify that the holder fits the requirements of
the California medical marijuana statute," said deputy city attorney Marc
Slavin. His office helped draft the language of the ordinance.

"It's a card that will not contain a name or photo for confidentiality
purposes. It will only display a unique serial number," Slavin said.

If a police officer stops someone in possession of marijuana, the person
would present the ID card along with standard photo identification. The ID
card serial number would be verified against a database of numbers at the
police department and the cardholder would be free to go - with their drugs.

"This is an ordinance that is simply designed to give effect to the
statewide proposition," Slavin said.

If approved by the mayor, this would be only the third such program in the
state. Those efforts are all byproducts of Proposition 215, approved by
voters in 1996. It allows for possession, cultivation, and use of marijuana
for medicinal purposes.

Similar ID card programs are used in Mendocino County and Arcata, Calif.,
where the chief of police personally issues photo ID cards to registered
medical marijuana patients.

The ordinance is not funded by the city, leaving it up to public health
officials and sponsors to determine an affordable fee for users that could
finance the program.

Randi Webster was in attendance as the supervisors approved the ordinance.
She is hobbled by a degenerative arthritis, gall stones and soft tissue
disease.

She described the "bone-on-bone" pain she treats through medical marijuana.

"Imagine having your legs stabbed and also having heat applied. And having
that between your fingers, your shoulders, your jaws, your eye sockets,
your back, your knees," Webster said. "When I ingest through the inhalation
of either smoking or vaporizing, it's instantaneous."