MEDICINAL MARIJUANA GROUP ASKS FOR COUNTY'S SUPPORT

Linda Jimenez is hopeful that next month Solano County leaders will
understand that she and fellow medical marijuana supporters are
trying only to relieve chronic pain.

The 36-year-old Fairfield resident said she has a painful joint
disorder originating in her jaw that causes headaches and depression.
Her marijuana use is physician-advised.

For several months, as a member of the Solano Patients' Group, a
medical marijuana advocacy organization, Jimenez and other group
members have lobbied county leaders to institute a voter-approved
state patient card program.

It's been 10 years since state voters approved medicinal marijuana
use but Solano County leaders so far have balked at implementing a
required patient card program.

The patient card program would track who is legally prescribed by a
physician to get medical marijuana.

There's no clear indication the Solano County Board of Supervisors
will move ahead with the card program when board members tentatively
are set to consider the issue Sept. 26.

"I'm glad I don't have to vote today," said Supervisor Duane Kromm,
District 3-Fairfield. "I'm not sure how I would vote."

Kromm said he has a number of concerns, including a 2005 U.S. Supreme
Court decision.

In June 2005, the court reversed a lower court decision that federal
prosecution of patients who cultivate and possess marijuana for their
own use is unconstitutional.

That shouldn't factor into the issue, Jimenez says.

The county is supposed to uphold state law, and state law calls for
administering a medicinal marijuana patient card program, Jimenez and
fellow supporters say.

Supervisor Barbara Kondylis, District 1-Vallejo said that is what she
wants done as well.

Kondylis said the county's only role is to administer the program
that voters approved a decade ago.

"Frankly, I don't know why we don't issue (the card program) through
the DMV," Kondylis said.

Supervisor John Silva, District 2-Benicia, said he has a different
take on the issue.

His past profession as a police officer makes him less inclined to
support medicinal marijuana, Silva said.

"I made my living enforcing these (drug) laws at one time; I'm not
easily going to change my mind," Silva said.

Typically, patients use marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer, and other
painful or life threatening conditions, Jimenez said. But not all
Solano Patients' Group's members reveal what ailments they have, she said.