MEDICINAL POT PANEL PROPOSES REGISTRY FOR PATIENTS

SAN FRANCISCO - A committee of cops, medicinal marijuana advocates
and doctors has recommended that California establish a voluntary
registry of marijuana-using patients to protect users from arrest.

The Medical Marijuana Task Force, appointed in March by state Attorney
General Bill Lockyer, also has recommended that the state develop
regulations to allow groups of patients and caregivers to grow marijuana.

The proposals, if made law, would represent an about-face from the
policies of former Gov. Pete Wilson. The attorney general during
Wilson's administration, Dan Lungren, maintained that Proposition 215,
passed by voters in November 1996, allows only individual patients to
grow marijuana and to use the medicinal marijuana law as a defense if
prosecuted.

State regulation of marijuana cooperatives would allow clubs now
operating underground in San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Cruz, Marin,
Humboldt, Mendocino and San Diego counties to function openly, said
task force members and other medicinal marijuana advocates.

``Some clubs, at least, will apply under these guidelines,'' said Dale
Gieringer, an author of Proposition 215 and spokesman for the
California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, which lobbies for the legalization of marijuana.

The statewide registry would make enforcement uniform, with patients
issued photo identification cards that all the state's law enforcement
agencies would honor.

Several task force participants said the proposals represent a
remarkable degree of consensus achieved by representatives of groups
that have long been at loggerheads over medicinal marijuana.

``We've accomplished much more than I believed was possible,'' said
Tiburon Police Chief Pete Herley, who also represented the California
Police Chiefs Association on the Committee. ``I worked with people I
would never have expected to come into contact with.''

But some participants, including the California Peace Officers'
Association, said they are seeking changes to the committee's final
document from Lockyer before deciding whether to support it.

``The whole idea of having a Proposition 215 that violates federal law
is a difficult dilemma for us,'' said Robert Elsberg, the peace
officers' association representative on the task force. ``The citizens
of California want marijuana to be made available, and the federal
government says it is a controlled substance.''

Location is key

Proposition 215 was supposed to end the prosecution of patients who
could produce a doctor's recommendation that they use medicinal
marijuana to treat a variety of serious illnesses, including AIDS and
cancer. Instead, a patient's chances of being arrested and prosecuted
for using medicinal marijuana depend largely on where the patient
happens to live or travel.

In Northern California's Mendocino County, a user can apply to the
county health department for an identity card and expect to be
unmolested by local deputies if in possession of up to six marijuana
plants and two pounds of marijuana. But even patients carrying a
Mendocino identity card have no guarantee against arrest in the many
other counties that interpret the law as merely a defense a patient
may use after being brought to court on charges of growing, buying or
possessing marijuana.

The task force's recommendations have not yet been formally released,
and some wording is still being reviewed by organizations represented
on the committee.

Some medicinal marijuana supporters and AIDS activists have raised
concerns about a registry.

``This is unprecedented,'' said Dennis Peron, chief author of
Proposition 215, whose San Francisco medicinal marijuana club was
closed by a federal court in 1998. ``Registering cancer patients? For
what? This is treating marijuana as though it were heroin.''

The current law, Peron insisted, ``is working. They are just doing
this to appease the cops.''

A copy of the text agreed to by committee members at their last
meeting was obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The 16-page document,
drafted as an Assembly bill, would have patients submit their doctor's
recommendations and an application to their local county health
departments, along with an as-yet unspecified fee.

ID card

In return, patients would receive an identity card, which would
include a 24-hour 800 telephone number that officers could call to
verify the card's validity. People identified as primary caregivers to
medical marijuana users would also have the right to carry the
identity card. The card would be renewed annually.

A similar system exists in Oregon, where patients must pay $150 to
register with the state.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, has said he hopes to
introduce a bill this month to establish the statewide registry.