CALIFORNIA REACHES ' ARMISTICE " ON POT

AG seeks to make medical marijuana law work smoothly

SAN FRANCISCO--Reversing his predecessor's approach to the medical marijuana
initiative passed by voters in 1996, state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has told
law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates who have fought each other
for years to make the law work.

Since February, police chiefs, sheriffs, narcotics officers and district
attorneys have been discussing with cannabis center operators and medical
marijuana advocates the fine points of how best to distribute marijuana and
protect users from prosecution.

"There's kind of an armistice," said Scott Imler, director of the Los
Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in West Hollywood, the largest marijuana
center in the state that is still functioning. "Everybody seems genuinely
interested in trying to implement Proposition 215 in a responsible way. It
is an exciting and vital process."

Christy McCampbell, president of the California Narcotics Officers Assn.,
echoed Imler's assessment.

"We are all just trying to reach common ground on how to deal with an
extremely complex issue," said McCampbell, whose organization represents
7,000 narcotics officers across the state and opposed Proposition 215 during
the 1996 campaign.

What remains to be seen is whether the task force formed by Lockyer can
devise ways to make the law work that will win Gov. Gray Davis' support and
not bring down the wrath of the federal government. Last year, the U.S.
Justice Department won a court order shutting most of the state's cannabis
clubs on the basis that federal law--which says it is illegal to possess,
sell or distribute marijuana--supersedes state law.

Davis has said that he voted against Proposition 215, but so far has made no
public comment on Lockyer's efforts. The attorney general said he doesn't
know whether the governor will support the task force's recommendations. A
Davis spokesman did not return phone calls Tuesday.

Marijuana is smoked or ingested by people suffering a variety of
ailments--including cancer, AIDS and spastic muscle conditions. Some doctors
and patients say the drug quells nausea, eases pain and restores appetite.

The federal government is due to release a report next Wednesday, written by
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, on whether
there is any medicinal value to smoking or ingesting marijuana.

Among the options the commitee is considering is a proposal for a statewide
registry of medical marijuana patients. The state Department of Health
Services would create the registry and issue identification cards to medical
marijuana users. The cards would indicate to local law enforcement officials
that the bearer was using medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

Proposition 215 allows patients who need marijuana to treat pain or ease
other symptoms of a variety of illnesses to use it, with a doctor's
recommendation. But then-Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and the federal government
took a dim view of the law when it passed three years ago, charging that it
was a ploy to legalize a federally banned substance.

Lungren personally--and successfully--crusaded to shut down the state's
largest club, operated in San Francisco by Proposition 215 author Dennis
Peron. And Lungren welcomed the Justice Department's assault on cannabis
clubs in federal court.

Lockyer said the policy change is a priority because "the attorney general
has a duty to try to effectuate the people's will. And I voted for Prop.
215.

"Having watched my mom die of leukemia when she was 50 and a little sister
die of leukemia when she was 39, it just always seemed odd to me that a
doctor could give them morphine but couldn't give them marijuana," He said.