JUDGE ORDERS CANNABIS CLUB CLOSED

LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge has ordered marshals to shutter a cannabis
buyers club in Oakland on Friday, two months after the Oakland City Council
took the controversial step of making the medical marijuana distributor an
official government agency.

In his Tuesday night ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer rejected
arguments from lawyers representing the 2,000- member Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative that the federal government's ban on medical marijuana
violates patients' constitutional rights to relieve excruciating pain.

Breyer acknowledged that closing the club would increase suffering, but he
ruled that the action would not cause imminent harm or death to the
patients. Club officials, who sought a jury trial on the matter, said they
plan to appeal the decision.

The Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative was among six such clubs in
northern California that had been sued by the U.S. Justice Department for
violating federal marijuana distribution laws.

Breyer ruled that another club, Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in
Fairfax, could remain open until a jury in an upcoming trial settles the
narrow issue of whether it dispensed marijuana the day a federal agent
conducted surveillance of it.

A third cannabis club, in Ukiah, has remained open and three others have
closed.

California voters approved in November 1996 a statewide ballot measure that
allowed seriously ill patients to grow and smoke medical marijuana under
certain circumstances.

But that measure is in direct conflict with federal law. The Justice
Department and California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the Republican nominee for
governor, have battled to close the clubs.

In August, the Oakland City Council approved a measure making the club an
"agent of the city," attempting to use a clause in the Federal Controlled
Substances Act that shields from federal prosecution undercover agents who
sell drugs in their official capacity with the police.

Oakland officials on Wednesday said they plan to stage a protest of the
judge's ruling at the club's office Friday.

"I'm angry and depressed," said Joe DeVries, an aide to Oakland Councilman
Nate Miley.

"The federal government says that marijuana has no medical benefit, but I'd
like them to talk to a 70-year-old chemotherapy patient who says marijuana
saved his life, or AIDS patients who would tell them that marijuana is the
only thing that will bring back their appetite," DeVries said.

Robert Raich, a lawyer for the Oakland cannabis club, said: "We're
disappointed with the ruling. . . . We're concerned that this will cause a
public health and safety problem for these patients, who will have to go to
the streets to get their marijuana."

Under Lungren's interpretation of the state law, seriously ill patients
could grow and smoke the medical marijuana only with a doctor's
recommendation. If the patients were unable to grow it on their own, Lungren
said, they could obtain it from a "primary care giver," such as a doctor,
nurse or relative.

The cannabis clubs contended they were primary care givers and therefore
acting within the law.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst