MEDICAL-POT CLUBS FLOURISH IN LEGAL HAZE

Drugs: Four Dispensaries In San Francisco Set Their Own Differing Rules.

(San Francisco)-A year after San Francisco's most flamboyant cannabis
club was shut down by a judge, medical marijuana distribution here is
alive and well, with dispensaries ranging from on-call delivery
services to clean, well-lit retail spaces and funky activist-run
storefronts.

With local politicians on their side and plenty of patients flocking
in, four marijuana clubs appear to be quietly flourishing, with a
fifth in the works.

Still in legal limbo, each has constructed its own set of rules. Some,
but not all, of the clubs require proof of a doctor's recommendation,
which Proposition 215 - the medical marijuana initiative passed in
1996 - said patients must have before they could legally smoke marijuana.

A recent government-commissioned scientific review concluded that
marijuana may help a handful of conditions, such as intractable pain,
nausea and appetite loss associated with AIDS or cancer. But the clubs
attract people with a much broader range of stated ailments, including
menstrual cramps, lupus and migraines.

Many patients also say they need it for psychiatric or psychological
conditions, such as manic depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress
disorder - even heroin addiction.

Local law-enforcement officials maintain a hands-off policy toward the
clubs, which are careful to operate more discreetly than Dennis
Peron's Cannabis Healing Center, where crowds congregated on the
sidewalk and smoked marijuana in front of TV cameras. The club since
has been shut down.

Although they have cited some club members for smoking in public,
police are not overly concerned, according to Lt. Mike Puccinelli,
acting captain of the narcotics division.

"There's so many other problems with narcotics in this city, it's not
really a big priority," he said.

The legal fog the clubs operate in may be clearing somewhat. A task
force convened by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer is about to
unveil proposed legislation to set standards for deciding who is
entitled to possess and use marijuana.

The legislation wouldn't address federal laws outlawing marijuana,
although activists hope Congress eventually will reclassify it as a
prescription drug.

A draft of the proposal would create a state ID card issued to people
with verified letters from their doctor. It would also sanction
distributing medical marijuana by "cultivation cooperatives," run by
and for qualified patients, as well as by licensed health-care
facilities, like nursing homes and hospices.

None of the current group of San Francisco clubs meets those
definitions. One is run much like an ordinary business, with a city
license; two others shun all official corporate status for
philosophical reasons; and a fourth operates under the auspices of a
board of directors. The delivery service is headed up by a Hayward
woman, Jane Weirick, who hopes to transform it into a standing
dispensary under the nonprofit umbrella of a local Catholic church.