MARIJUANA BILL MIGHT EASE AN INMATE'S PAIN

LAW: Marvin Chavez of Santa Ana is imprisoned and ailing, and a proposal in
the Legislature could prevent more such cases.

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's a medical-marijuana
patient, so he doesn't get the medicine he says he needs to control severe
back pain.

And he's got 5 1/2 more years to go.

"The guy is just suffering," said J. David Nick, who 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 today.

That's a difference -- some call it an injustice -- that pending
legislation might eliminate. Whether it would be of any help to 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 District Attorney's
Office was concerned.

When officers posing as patients came to Chavez for pot, 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. In addition to Chavez,
one co-op leader is in prison, and another heads to court Monday.

Compare that with San Francisco. The most flamboyant cannabis club was shut
down last year, but four others are thriving. In Ventura, a store owner who
was openly selling pot under the auspices of 215 was ordered to stop -- but
wasn't prosecuted for a crime.

In Mendocino, the county issues identity cards to medical-marijuana
patients, who can have up to 2 pounds of pot without running afoul of the
law..

The list goes on.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, is trying to fix that. He
introduced a bill (SB848) that would "promote uniform and consistent
application" of the law, bringing everyone onto the same page.

The bill, based on the recommendations of a task force convened by Attorney
General Bill Lockyer, would:

Establish a voluntary statewide registry for medical-marijuana patients.

Require the Department of Health Services to decide how much medical
marijuana is appropriate for patients. Allow cooperative
marijuana-cultivation projects, with regulations to be developed for their
operation and supervision.

Require patients to have a recommendation from their personal physician
before using medical marijuana.

Define "serious medical conditions" warranting the use of marijuana 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 next 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 guaranteed 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, and donations to cover the cost of
medical marijuana are allowed, Chavez's crimes might be crimes no longer.