COLUMN: RATIONAL TALK ON POT A RARE EVENT

Marijuana is that old cause that never quite dies. Although the government
blows ever more money trying to eradicate it and imprisons more citizens
trying to stop it, the citizens will still drift into a Fresno art gallery
on a Thursday night - and talk about it. Marijuana.

Characteristically of the crowd and its subject, they start 20 minutes late.

Among the 35 people are well-dressed Libertarian Party officials. There are
young and aging hippies with Jerry Garcia ponytails, attorneys in suits and
ties, a young doctor from Modesto and a handful of admitted users.

One of the users is from the Bay Area, a pediatrician with AIDS. He says,
"If it were not for medicinal marijuana, I probably would not be standing
here tonight." It's no joke. Even the American Medical Association supports
marijuana as an option.

But outside is a law-and-order world, where corporations make drug testing
the newest solution and elected officials make illegal drugs impossible to
talk about rationally. Out there, as The Economist reports, there are eight
times more drug prisoners now than in 1980. The National Organization for
Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, also reports California has five times
more drug prisoners now than in 1986. In its state prisons, 28% are in for
drugs.

Still the cause does not die. They assemble in the Spectrum Art Gallery. And
they talk about the least harmful corner of the drug debate: medical
marijuana.

In November 1996, 56% of California voters passed Proposition 215, which
legalized marijuana for medicinal uses. Since then, similar initiatives have
passed in Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Nevada.

Yet you wouldn't know it's legal locally. In the room, no one knows of any
Valley medicinal-marijuana buyers' clubs. This stands in stark contrast with
speakers imported for the event by Fresno radio station KFCF.

They're activists from Oakland. They've dispensed marijuana from
storefronts - before the U.S. government stopped them - with blessings of
the city of Oakland and Alameda County.

They offer funny advice.

An earnest young man, Jeff Jones, director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative, says in all sincerity that Fresnans should pressure their
strong mayor for tolerance.

You never heard a room laugh so loud in your life.

Still, there is talk about starting something here. A collective marijuana
garden for the sick. A cooperative to share marijuana for medicine. But the
truth is people are scared.

Dale Gieringer, NORML's California coordinator, says, "I really think it's
time for pot smokers to come out of the closet."

A lot of people giggle.

The young doctor from Modesto asks if doctors here prescribe marijuana to
help their patients.

"No way," said one.

"I can't think of any," an attorney says.

"They're scared, man," adds another. "I called doctors from Salinas to Three
Rivers and not a one would see me."

It's now more than two years since the voters spoke. And fear of prison
prevails over common sense. Outside an art gallery on a Thursday night, the
old irrationality still rules.