PALO ALTO'S MARIJUANA AGENT?

A Palo Alto man who uses marijuana for medical purposes hopes to
persuade Palo Alto officials to follow the lead of the city of Oakland
by appointing him a city agent, so he can legally distribute the drug to
other medical marijuana users.

Mark Steinkamp, 41, an insurance broker, said he hopes to get the City
Council to discuss the issue when it returns from vacation in
September. Steinkamp, who uses marijuana "first and foremost" to
treat depression but also to ease pain from several back injuries,
said he has a meeting scheduled with Mayor Dick Rosenbaum. "It's a
precarious position for a city to take, obviously, but it's not
without precedent," Steinkamp said. "The city of San Francisco is
looking at taking the same action that Oakland has, if the federal
government doesn't back off its threats to cannabis clubs." Last week
the Oakland City Council caused a legal stir by voting to name members
of its local cannabis club as city agents, essentially peace officers,
in an effort to protect them from threats of federal officials. "Peace
officers" can legally distribute marijuana under state and federal
law, Oakland officials maintain.

Despite California voters' approval last year of Proposition 215,
which allows patients with a doctor's recommendation to use the drug
for medical purposes, federal officials say marijuana use for any
purpose is illegal. "It's the law under the (state) Health and Safety
Code, and local and state officials have a duty to uphold the law
whether they like it or not," Steinkamp said. "It's an outrage (that
it's not being enforced) and that the people who are suffering don't
get any kind of relief from the system. ... The federal government has
threatened the doctors and threatened the confidentiality of the
doctor-patient relationship. My idea is to hopefully reconcile the
bizarreness, the ugliness and the suffering."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry