MOVEMENT ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Several news stories in the past few days have described drafts of
California's Medical Marijuana Task Force, appointed in March by
Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The details - a voluntary patient
registry that issues identification cards, with further guidelines to
be worked out - are about what we reported June 21, after editorial
writer Alan Bock interviewed Mr. Lockyer. The final report could be
issued as early as next week.

Apparently, the attorney general, who favored the medical marijuana
initiative Prop. 215 and now aims to implement it, wants to present as
united a front as possible next week and is cultivating support among
some of the most skeptical members of the law enforcement community.

"When the final report is really issued, it will be in a formal
setting after getting all members on board and all the i's dotted and
the t's crossed," Nathan Barankin of Mr. Lockyer's office told us.

"Mr. Lockyer wants a proposal that will work not just in concept but
in practice," he said. "That's why he's working so hard to make sure
law enforcement organizations can support the final version."

We can and do tut-tut about the solicitude paid to some law
enforcement officials who have essentially ignored the voters' wishes
on medical marijuana since November of 1996 when Prop. 215 passed with
a significant 56-43 majority. The proposition itself has not been
challenged in court. Ideally, law enforcement officials are supposed
to find ways to uphold the law as the people pass it, not dictate the
terms of enforcement.

But, law enforcement organizations have political clout and the
ability to put people in jail for trying, ad hoc and perhaps
imperfectly, to implement Prop. 215, as happened to Orange County
resident Marvin Chavez and others.

Efforts by a few California cities to try to implement Prop. 215 have
been scattered and incomplete. Some members of the public are still
wary. So it is prudent for Mr. Lockyer to be concerned about getting
law enforcement support for his task force proposals.

Once the task force report is issued and implementation is attempted,
however, Mr. Lockyer could face a challenge from the federal
government, which prohibits sale of marijuana and still places
marijuana on Schedule I, reserved for uniquely dangerous drugs with no
known medical uses.

Mr. Lockyer could make a stand for states' rights on the matter and he
could join forces with the attorneys general of other states to file a
brief on behalf of a petition by John Gettmann of Virginia to
reschedule marijuana, making medical research easier, among other things.

He and other state officials could also join Pearson v.
McCaffery(sic), in which a coalition of doctors, scientists and
patients contend that the federal government has no authority to
invalidate state medical marijuana laws when there is no evidence that
implementation would involve interstate commerce.

A workable plan to implement Prop. 215 will be welcome. But if
California patients also need protection from the federal government,
Attorney General Lockyer should put himself in a position to provide
it.