MEDICAL MARIJUANA USERS LICENSED

ARCATA, Calif. (AP) -- Arcata's police chief walked into the house and was
escorted upstairs to a bedroom filled with marijuana plants and enough
smokable pot to fill a grocery bag.

Instead of reaching for his gun or a search warrant, Mel Brown offered a
handshake.

"I used to leave places like that with plants and prisoners," Brown said on
the way out of Jason Browne's marijuana garden. "But here, law enforcement
is holding out the olive branch to people who smoke medical marijuana."

Tucked between groves of towering redwoods and misty coastal beaches in far
northern California, Arcata, population 16,000, is getting considerable
attention for its response to Proposition 215, the 1996 voter initiative
that allows people to grow and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Brown personally issues photo identification cards bearing his signature to
people who register as medical marijuana patients, after confirming that
they have a doctor's recommendation.

So far, he has issued about 100 of the "stay out of jail" cards. Officers
have been instructed not to arrest pot growers or smokers who carry the ID.

Brown said he is not concerned about trouble from Attorney General Janet
Reno, who personally reminded state Attorney General Bill Lockyer last month
that Proposition 215 runs counter to federal law.

"Quite frankly, I don't see Janet Reno coming to Arcata and arresting
somebody or having her people arrest somebody," he said.

As a precaution, however, Brown keeps no record of who applies for an ID and
doesn't keep track of those who currently use a card.

One of the card holders is Browne, who smokes pot to relieve his back pain
and invited the chief to survey his crop. During the visit, the chief
listened attentively while the grower spoke of the potency of his next
harvest, and sighed sympathetically when Browne shook some stalks and
unleashed a swarm of marijuana-munching bugs.

"Jason and I were both very cautious when the program first started," said
Brown, 53. "I didn't want to be associated with black market drug dealers
and he didn't want to be associated with someone who was going to stab him
in the back. But time passed and we got over the stereotypes."

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department won a court order to shut down most
of the state's cannabis clubs for violating federal laws against marijuana
distribution.

Lockyer, who is seeking a compromise that will avoid the wrath of federal
officials, has formed a task force of law enforcement officers and medical
marijuana advocates to study the issue.

"What makes Arcata's program work is the fact that law enforcement and the
medical community are involved," said Nathan Barankin, Lockyer's spokesman.
"The task force has been asked to look at Arcata as a model and perhaps make
some recommendations on whether what works for Arcata works for Los Angeles
and other larger communities."

Arcata works for officials in Mendocino County, where District Attorney
Norman Vroman plans to announce a similar ID card system next month. "We
thought it was very successful and we intend to plagiarize as much of it as
we can," Vroman said.

Such praise from law enforcement is a dramatic change for the Emerald
Triangle, the region in Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties where pot
is the largest cash crop and drug-busting teams often raided clandestine
marijuana patches hidden in the forests.

Pot is so common here that the pungent scent of marijuana smoke hovers
outside bars, and locals practice the "4:20" toke time each afternoon, much
as people take tea in England. (Smokers say 4-20 also is police code for a
marijuana offense.)

Brown, who serves on Lockyer's task force, is proud of the official support,
but says his program is simply a response to Arcata's needs.

"The chief concern was being able to afford the people in my community the
rights they were given," he said. "Secondly, the program doesn't waste the
community's money on police work that would not lead to successful
prosecutions."