CALAVERAS SUPERVISORS STUDY MEDICAL-POT PLAN

SAN ANDREAS - An Angels Camp man will ask Calaveras County supervisors
Monday to establish a way to provide marijuana to patients who have a legal
right to it and to protect them from "persecution and prosecution."

David Jack, who uses marijuana to counteract the affects of a brain-stem
tumor, said he and other medical-marijuana users in the county are tired of
being forced into the "black market" to obtain legal medicine.

The 57-year-old former social worker, who said he has gone through 30
medications since undergoing surgery on his tumor nine years ago, wants the
county Health Department to establish an identification program and a way
for medical-marijuana patients to obtain the drug.

At least one county supervisor supports the idea.

Tom Tryon, who represents Murphys, said he agrees that people with a legal
right to marijuana should be able to go to the county Health Department "or
some neutral third party" and obtain their medicine.

"You could say that it doesn't apply to many people, and therefore it's
insignificant," Tryon said. "But if it applies to you and it's critical to
your life and the pain and suffering, it's pretty significant."

One way to address the issue, Jack said, would be to use illegally grown
marijuana confiscated by local law enforcement agents and ultimately
destroyed.

"We'd like to see a not-for-profit dispensary for patients to obtain this
medicine," Jack said.

Jack said he's not asking for the county to set up a marijuana-users club,
where people could sit around and smoke joints.

"That's not sending a good message to our kids or the community," said
Jack, who uses a vaporizer which heats the marijuana without burning it to
administer the drug. "We just want a dispensary run through the Health
Department, where people can go with a picture identification card that
would verify the validity of the patient's need through a doctors' note or
prescription."

Jack also wants the county grand jury to investigate any and all complaints
by medical-marijuana patients or caregivers regarding violations of the
Compassionate Use Act.

That law, also known as Proposition 215, was passed in 1996 and made it
legal for people suffering from certain serious medical conditions to use
marijuana if they have a doctor's recommendation or approval.

Although it's the law, not many of the state's counties have adopted
policies or procedures for ensuring that patients have a right to the drug,
Jack said. He said a recently formed group known as the American Medical
Marijuana Association is beginning to call for counties to get more
involved in backing the rights of medical-marijuana patients.

Among the communities that have made some strides in providing access to
medical marijuana is Arcata, where Police Chief Mel Brown has instituted an
identification-card program. To obtain one, a person must produce proof of
a doctor's recommendation, said Jeannie Buerer, the Police Department's
records supervisor.

However, Buerer said the card is not a license to grow a certain number of
plants, nor does it tell users where they can and can't smoke marijuana.
"And it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card," she said. "It's nothing more
than an identification card. Officers can still cite (cardholders) if they
have a bunch of plants or something that's obviously beyond personal use."

Jack said one reason he wanted to bring the issue to county leaders is
because he and other medical-marijuana users must endure "social sanctions"
for that use that range from rude comments to being watched by local law
enforcement agents.

"We have the police sitting in front of our house, parked there for an hour
at a time," he said. "We've had them come around our back yard. I even had
the (police) chief tell my son's friend's mother not to let her son have
anything to do with us because this is a drug house."

Angels Camp Police Chief Bill Nuttall could not be reached Friday for
comment on Jack's allegation.

Sheriff Dennis Downum said the state has been working to develop guidelines
for law enforcement to deal with medical-marijuana issues, and he'd rather
the county wait for those guidelines than develop its own guidelines.

The state law now in the works would allow medical use for people suffering
from such maladies as AIDS, anorexia, arthritis, cancer, chronic pain,
glaucoma, migraines, seizures and severe nausea.

* To reach Lode Bureau Chief Francis P. Garland, phone 736-9554 or e-mail
garnel@goldrush.com

Board meeting

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors will consider a request to
establish a system for providing medical marijuana when it meets at 10 a.m.
Monday in the Government Center, 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Andreas.