2 GROUPS IN STATE SEEK DEA PERMISSION TO GROW POT

Applicants Cite Manufacturing, Medicinal Uses

WASHINGTON -- Californians hoping for a cease-fire in the war on drugs
are seeking federal permission to grow marijuana.

Potent marijuana. In bulk. And designed for distribution.

"We would like to have a quality source," explained Scott Imler,
director of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center. "The
government's marijuana has never been very good."

Imler's group is one of two from California that have filed unusual
drug-manufacturing applications with the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. Imler, based in West Hollywood, directs a program that
provides therapeutic pot to 637 cancer, AIDS and other patients. The
other applicant, a Northern California business using the name The
Church of the Living Tree, wants to use marijuana plants as a raw
commodity for hemp paper.

Both groups have put a lot of effort into their applications. Neither
has unrealistic expectations for its chances.

"Whenever I call (the DEA) receptionist, she transfers my call to a
man who transfers me to someone's answering machine," said John Stahl,
a Mendocino County resident who identifies himself as trustee of The
Church of the Living Tree. "And they never get back to me."

The applications to become a legal "bulk manufacturer of marijuana,"
as the DEA puts it, expose another side of the evolving debate over
marijuana. It's a debate that resonates in California, where voters in
1996 approved Proposition 215 to allow medicinal use of pot. It's also
a debate about which some Central Valley residents have strong
feelings, with some advocates hoping that the DEA grants the
applications.

"I think it should have been done a long time ago," said John Lemos, a
52-year-old Hanford resident and former mortician who has AIDS.

Lemos says he uses marijuana to live -- "If I don't smoke marijuana, I
can't eat." He now grows his own, legally, with plants provided by a
San Francisco cannabis club. He and other club members cheered a
recent National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine report that
concluded pot can help treat pain, nausea and severe weight loss
associated with AIDS.

But the DEA retains its doubts.

DEA Deputy Administrator Donnie Marshall told a House panel last week,
"I suspect that medical marijuana is merely the first tactical
maneuver in an overall strategy that some hope will lead to the
eventual legalization of all drugs."

That response comes as little surprise to Carmichael resident Janice
Bonser, a homemaker and self-described libertarian. She was wearing a
hemp necklace bought at a Sacramento-area mall as she questioned the
DEA's ability to fairly judge the applications of groups like The
Church of the Living Tree.

"I think they're biased," Bonser said of the DEA. "If we found
(marijuana) to be useful, they would be out of business."

The DEA does, in fact, allow some pot to be grown legally. In Oxford,
Miss., a well-guarded laboratory has had a longtime contract to grow
marijuana for the National Institute on Drug Abuse -- while the lab's
director has a patent on a bullet-sized THC suppository. THC is the
active ingredient in marijuana.

Other companies can import or manufacture drugs. An Inglewood company
named High Standard Products, for instance, won renewed DEA approval
in April to manufacture LSD, heroin, cocaine and a dealer's black-bag
full of other drugs -- all for use as "analytical reference standards."

Stahl, however, also knows how particular the DEA can be. As owner of
Evanescent Press, he's been hand-making paper since the early 1970s.
He favors hemp stalks for their strength and quality and is accustomed
to using cast-off stalks provided by North Coast pot growers.

Several years ago, Stahl applied for DEA registration so he could grow
his own industrial hemp. Though marijuana in name, this is useless for
would-be partyers: Industrial hemp has less than 1 percent of the
high-giving THC content, compared with 10 percent to 15 percent for
commercial marijuana. Stahl installed the fences, lights, alarms and
other requirements mandated by DEA.

"They put us through the paces," Stahl said. "They made us go through
the full nine yards."

Following passage of Proposition 215, Stahl then proposed leasing
plots to those growing medicinal marijuana. They'd keep the leaves and
he'd use the stalks. Last year, the DEA said no.

So Stahl has paid another $875 application fee to support another,
updated application. A DEA public comment period on the application
ended last week. Imler, meanwhile, has been proceeding on his own track.

The Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center already grows its medicinal
marijuana in a 1,200-square-foot indoor site. Within three years,
according to its DEA application, the center wants to be growing
10,000 plants. Toward that end, the center intends to submit an
application next month for a National Institute on Drug Abuse contract
to grow pot.

"We grow very strong marijuana, and we like it that way," Imler said.
"Unfortunately, the federal government has taken the opposite view."