COUNTY KEEPS POT ISSUE ON ITS MEDICAL RADAR

SAN DIEGO - First, county supervisors declared war on California's
voter-approved medical marijuana law - filing an-yet to be heard
lawsuit in December to overturn the decade-old law, arguing that it
should be superseded by federal law that says marijuana is dangerous
and all use is illegal.

Now, it appears that county law enforcement has adopted the same
aggressive stance, declaring war on medical marijuana dispensaries.

In July - even though California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said
local police were not obligated to help enforce federal laws that say
all marijuana use is illegal - representatives of the San Diego
County district attorney's office and sheriff's deputies joined raids
on several dispensaries and arrested 10 people.

Meanwhile, the county's top drug prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney
Damon Mosler, said last week that he thinks all dispensaries are
inherently illegal - despite state voters having approved the 1996
"Compassionate Use Act" that made it legal for seriously ill people
to use marijuana to ease their pain.

Mosler said "There's nothing under (California's law) that allows for
retail sale (of marijuana)" - meaning that he believes dispensaries
are operating illegally even if they're only selling to patients with
legitimate recommendations from doctors.

The county's aggressive posture has ratcheted up the angst of
patients who use marijuana, and for drug advocacy groups, who say
regulated dispensaries are the best system for seriously ill people
to get marijuana.

Those patients and advocacy groups also say that other counties are
not targeting dispensaries, and that San Diego County's doing so will
force local patients "into the streets" to "score" marijuana from drug dealers.

"It's just very distressing," Craig McClain, a Vista patient who uses
marijuana to help ease the pain of his crushed spine, said recently.
"(Targeting dispensaries) is definitely a form of harassment. To me,
I'm so overwhelmed. There's nobody brave enough in our government to
stand up and help us."

Ongoing Controversy

Even though 55 percent of California voters approved the
Compassionate Use Act in 1996, the law remains vague and problematic
in the state - with counties, state officials and law enforcement
officers still unsure how to effectively implement it.

The 1996 law simply said that seriously ill people had the legal
right to "obtain and use marijuana for medicinal purposes."

It did not say how people would get the drug. Instead, it
"encouraged" the state and federal governments to implement a plan to
safely distribute medical marijuana - something that a decade later
has still not been done.

California legislators passed a law in 2003, hoping to fix the
distribution questions and make it easier for law enforcement
officers to tell who "legitimate" medical marijuana patients were.
The law, Senate Bill 420, ordered counties to create identification
card and registry systems.

But San Diego County supervisors balked. They decided to ignore SB
420. And in December, they filed a lawsuit to actually overturn the
Compassionate Use Act - arguing that the state law should be
pre-empted by federal law that says all marijuana use is illegal.

Critics say the supervisors have mounted their precedent-setting
opposition because they simply politically disagree. Each of the
supervisors have said they think marijuana is "bad," and that
creating identification cards for its use would tell children that
drug use was "OK."

But the supervisors have maintained they simply feel it is wrong to
honor California's law because federal law bans all marijuana use.

The lawsuit is important because it marks the first time a county has
sued to overturn any of the medical marijuana laws approved by voters
in 11 states.

The trial court is expected to rule on the lawsuit in November. But
whatever the judge decides, officials said they expect that appeals
will result in the issue being headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dispensaries 'Visited'

Meanwhile, law enforcement in San Diego County, like county
supervisors, appears to have taken a more aggressive posture toward
marijuana dispensaries. They rode along with federal agents and
helped in July's raids and seizures.

That, in turn, appears to have made federal drug enforcement agents
more aggressive as well. In late July, a week after the raids and
arrests, drug enforcement officials "visited" the remaining
dispensaries they knew about, to let them know they were violating
federal law - regardless of California's marijuana laws.

Mosler said those dispensaries were warned that federal agents could
return with new arrest warrants.

"I think the key message was, 'We could be back,' " said Dan Simmons,
spokesman for San Diego County's federal drug enforcement office.

William Dolphin, spokesman for Oakland-based Americans for Safe
Access that has advocated on behalf of medical marijuana patients,
said: "The understanding I have is that they were not exactly veiled
threats, but direct threats of arrest - 'We will be back and if your
doors are open, we will arrest you.' "

Other counties are not taking such actions.

Special Agent Joycelyn Barnes of San Francisco's regional drug
enforcement office said federal agents there don't bother medical
marijuana dispensaries.

"We try to target the large growers," Barnes said, "because they
would supply the dispensaries. The (dispensaries) are not our main focus."

Likewise, officials from Riverside County's district attorney's
office said they were not targeting dispensaries in that county.
Riverside officials said their county was actually trying to adopt
rules to guide how dispensaries would be operated legally within
their jurisdiction.

Mosler, meanwhile, said last week that he believes the recent raids
and "visits" by federal and local law enforcement have essentially
shut down all the dispensaries in San Diego County, except for
"mobile" dispensaries - operated out of people's cars.

Who's The Target?

Mosler said last week that San Diego County empathizes with, and has
not targeted for prosecution, medical marijuana users.

He said unscrupulous doctors have made fortunes selling phony medical
marijuana recommendations for patients who don't need the drug, and
that dispensaries could become magnets for crime.

Mosler said the dispensary workers arrested in July allegedly sold
marijuana to law officers - not patients.

"We've never harassed patients here," Mosler said.

He said that under California's Compassionate Use law, patients, or
their immediate caregivers, can legally grow their own marijuana.

But Dolphin and patients like McClain said shutting down the
dispensaries amounted to harassing medical marijuana patients.

"The fact, really and truly, is that it is the most ill people who
need dispensaries (to buy marijuana)," Dolphin said. "Say you've just
started chemotherapy and you've become violently ill. You're probably
too sick to plant a garden. You can't wait for plants to mature. And
most folks don't have the space to grow plants."

He said the county's action would essentially force patients out into
the streets to find "black market" dealers.

McClain, whose spine was crushed by falling steel girders in a
construction-related accident in 1990, said he does not want to grow
marijuana at his home in part because he is afraid federal agents
would raid his family's house.

McClain smokes marijuana a few times each day to help relax
debilitating spasms that plague his screwed-together spine.

Mosler said he genuinely empathizes with McClain and other San Diego
County residents who say they need marijuana to help them battle pain
from cancer, burns, injuries, eating disorders and other ailments.

But Mosler said he also regards medical marijuana dispensaries as
illegal - even if they are selling only to legitimate patients. He
said California's still-debated medical marijuana laws don't allow
for "dispensaries" that earn profits by selling medical marijuana.

Indeed, the Compassionate Use Act only says that it "encourages the
federal and state governments to implement a plan to provide for the
safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need."

McClain said that clearly is not happening in San Diego County.

"For some reason, San Diego County has taken it upon itself to be the
vanguard of this ignorant movement," he said.

Dolphin agreed.

"No one wants their cancer-stricken grandmother going out on the
street corner trying to score some marijuana," he said. "The will of
voters was more with the patients."