JAIL PATIENT CAPTURED IN MARIJUANA LAW'S CRACKS

This is a battle Marvin Chavez watches through prison bars. Years of his
life may well hang in the balance.

Chavez is imprisoned in Susanville, a Gold Rush town about a 200-mile drive
northeast of Sacramento. He's from Santa Ana, so he doesn't get many
visitors. He says he needs marijuana to control severe back pain.

But he doesn't get it in prison. And he's got 5½ more years to go.

"The guy is just suffering," said J. David Nick, who has represented Chavez.

In November, Chavez was found guilty on three felony counts of selling or
transporting marijuana. In January, he was sentenced to six years in prison.

If Chavez did what he did in San Francisco or in Mendocino or Ventura
counties, rather than in Orange County, he might not be behind bars.

That's a difference -- some call it an injustice -- that pending
legislation might eliminate. Whether it would help Chavez remains to be
seen, but his advocates are hopeful.

"If you've been convicted of a crime, and tomorrow they decide it's no
longer a crime, you could argue that you shouldn't be in jail," said Dennis
Riordan, the San Francisco attorney who is handling Chavez's appeal. "But
it depends on the final form of the legislation."

Chavez's odyssey began in 1996, when he zealously crusaded for the passage
of Proposition 215, California's medical-marijuana initiative. After its
victory, he created Orange County's first "cannabis club," got a business
license, spoke at city council meetings and worked to familiarize people
with the new law -- at least as he understood it.

His understanding was wrong -- at least as far as the Orange County
District Attorney's Office is concerned.

When officers posing as patients came to Chavez for marijuana, complaining
of pain, Chavez gave them "medicine" in exchange for "donations." That, the
prosecutor successfully argued, is a marijuana sale.

"He should not have been jailed," said Anna Boyce, a registered nurse and
Mission Viejo grandmother who helped draft Prop. 215 and worked alongside
Chavez. "He was doing a big service to the people in our cooperative. Now
people don't have any way to get their medication."

Every county in California has interpreted Prop. 215 differently, and
Orange County is known as one of the most hard-line.

Compare that with San Francisco. The most outspoken cannabis club was shut
down last year, but four others are thriving. A Ventura County store owner
who was openly selling marijuana under the auspices of Prop. 215 was
ordered to stop -- but wasn't prosecuted. In Mendocino, the county issues
identity cards to patients, who can have up to 2 pounds of marijuana
without running afoul of the law.

The list goes on.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, is trying to fix that. He
introduced a bill, SB848, that would "promote uniform and consistent
application" of the law.

The bill, based on recommendations of a task force convened by Attorney
General Bill Lockyer, would establish a voluntary statewide registry for
marijuana-using patients.

It would require the state Department of Health Services to decide how much
marijuana is appropriate in a medical context.

Cooperative marijuana-cultivation projects would be allowed, with
regulations developed for their operation and supervision.

Patients would need a recommendation from their personal physician to
legally use marijuana.

"Serious medical conditions" warranting the use of marijuana would be
defined as AIDS, anorexia, arthritis, cachexia, cancer, chronic pain,
glaucoma, migraine, persistent muscle spasms, seizures and severe nausea.

"This is needed because patients are finding themselves in potential
criminal situations that they didn't anticipate under 215, and law
enforcement is wasting a lot of time and resources ... that they could be
expending on actual violations of the law," said Rand Martin, chief of
staff for Vasconcellos.

After clearing the Senate, the bill passed the Assembly Health Committee
last week and will go to the Assembly Appropriations Committee when the
Legislature reconvenes this month.

The proposal is highly controversial. Some Prop. 215 advocates abhor the
idea of a statewide registry of patients, which would require photo
identification. Others object on principle, saying all legitimate drugs
should be handled through the pharmaceutical system. And Gov. Gray Davis
has grave concerns of his own: Federal law still says marijuana is illegal
to use, no matter what California does.

But this collision course between the state and federal governments has
been set since 1996, when Prop. 215 garnered 56 percent of the vote. "We
passed it. It's the will of the people. We need some method of
distribution. Do it," Boyce said.

If some version of the bill passes, Chavez's crimes might be crimes no
longer.