A QUESTIONABLE PROPOSITION

SAN FRANCISCO - John Lemos, a man of the Valley, has come to this city to
buy marijuana. Marijuana he uses as medicine; marijuana he uses to get
high - thanks to California voters and Proposition 215, the Medical
Marijuana Initiative of 1996.

Every month, Lemos makes the journey from his home in Hanford to CHAMP, a
club that sells pot. There are no such clubs in the Valley.

CHAMP stands for Californians Helping Alleviate Medical Problems, and it
sits at 194 Church St., which is rather fitting if you listen very long to
the club's supporters. They don't say it outright, but their inference is
clear: CHAMP's mission is heavenly.

It's here on a July afternoon that Janna, a club employee with two nose
rings and a ponytail of braids, checks Lemos' photo identification. Janna
says she has no last name, and she does it with a nasally air of authority
that suggests she would appreciate no more questions.

She and Lemos stand at an open doorway, the club's security door propped
open to welcome a fresh breeze and brilliant sunshine washing over San
Francisco.

Janna's job is to stop double dealing: People buying at CHAMP and then
reselling on the street. She says she does it with prayer. "Really, a
spiritual defense is our first line." You know she's not kidding.

But none of Janna's resources - spiritual or otherwise - is needed with
Lemos, a tall, angular man with bleached blond hair. Lemos is a legit
customer. He has AIDS. He started using marijuana to ease severe nausea from
chemotherapy. Now, he says, he takes 48 pills a day which kill his appetite.
Without marijuana, he has no appetite, he says.

Janna stands aside at the doorway and allows Lemos to climb a 19-step
staircase to CHAMP's second-floor space above a bar called The Transfer.
This is the Castro, San Francisco's pre-eminent gay neighborhood. The
sidewalks are big-city crowded. A Boston Market is across the street;
Blockbuster and Safeway are up the way.

Lemos, 51, takes the steps easily. Pretty good for a man who expected to be
dead by now. Six months. That's what the doctor gave him in 1989. "I've been
really lucky - I guess," Lemos says, irony creeping into his flat voice,
dark humor trailing right behind.

Maybe his work prepared him for all of this. He worked as a mortician before
they told him he was going to die. Resignation and fatigue have dulled a
once exuberant personality. Yet Lemos still is friendly and easygoing.

Amused, too, by the painting at the top of the CHAMP staircase. It's a loud,
irreverent depiction of Elvis Presley in Mickey Mouse ears and a red royal
robe. The King looks foolish, but what the hell. This is San Francisco.

This trip up the stairs, Lemos smiles again at Elvis as he steps into the
club to make his purchase.

The retailing of marijuana is where the battle over Prop. 215 now rages. The
initiative made it legal for Californians to grow and possess marijuana for
medical purposes.

The proposition's one catch: A doctor must recommend "that the person's
health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer,
anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine or
any other illness for which marijuana provides relief."

But, says Evelyn James, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration in San Francisco, "There is nothing in the proposition that
says sales are legal."

And it's still against federal law to cultivate or distribute marijuana,
says Stephen Shefler, chief assistant U.S. Attorney in San Francisco. So
government lawyers are fighting the sales of marijuana at some clubs like
CHAMP.

"We are there to close them down because they are violating federal law,"
Shefler says.

CHAMP is not one of the defendants in an ongoing federal lawsuit against six
clubs, most in the Bay area. But the government likely will move to close
CHAMP if it succeeds in court later this month against the other clubs,
Shefler says.

Ken Hayes, CHAMP's executive director, vows to take a stand if the
government acts. But he also admits the club would have few options.

Ah, democracy in action - California style. Prop. 215 lurches forward with
all the grace of a staggering drunk with people like John Lemos trailing
behind to get their marijuana.

James at DEA says that trail is dangerous. She says little scientific
research has been conducted on the medical benefits of marijuana, and the
anecdotal evidence is suspect. "A lot of these people used marijuana before
recreationally, and they expect it to work. So their expectation creates an
effect regardless of what the chemicals cause," James says. Shades of the
placebo effect.

James also injects several C-words into the debate. Smoking marijuana is
"inherently carcinogenic and contributes to the further compromise of
delicate immune systems," she says, adding the DEA is not "anti-compassion."

"Legitimate," government-approved medications exist to ease pain and nausea,
James says.

MEDICALLY SPEAKING

John Lemos will confound some critics at this point. He says no healthy
person should be smoking marijuana. "It uses up brain cells. But I'm at a
point where it's a trade-off."

Doctors can't agree whether Lemos' choice is a smart one.

"There is no consensus," says Dr. Shaikah Matin, chief of pharmacy and
theraputics at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fresno.

Dr. Marshall Flam, a veteran Fresno oncologist, agrees with the DEA
position: There are legal drugs to help with pain.

But another Fresno doctor says it's not so simple. Dr. Manthani Reddy
specializes in infectious disease. He treats 75 to 100 patients with HIV and
AIDS.

Reddy says a combination of new drugs, known as protease inhibitors, is
keeping AIDS patients alive longer than before. Some patients are even
returning to work. However, 20% have nausea or other side effects. They need
something to help. Marijuana is most effective for some, Reddy says.

He says it should be a treatment option despite a recent study that
questions the benefit of smoking pot. Funny thing about all this: At first,
Lemos didn't want to smoke marijuana.

He considered it "a low-life drug," far beneath him, when his doctor in
Monterey suggested it nine years ago.

Lemos was living in Salinas at the time. Managing three funeral homes.
Driving a Cadillac. Burying the dead was a good living.

He had done drugs before. But not marijuana. And he wasn't about to deal on
some street corner. He found some through acquaintances.

At first, Lemos made marijuana tea. Terrible stuff, he says, laughing. He
tells this part of his story in the Hanford home he shares with his male
partner of 16 years. Lemos is gay.

His partner has AIDS, too, but won't use marijuana. He doesn't like it, says
Lemos. He settles back on a rattan couch in green jogging shorts and a gray
T-shirt. A dry cough, a leftover of radiation treatment, interrupts the
conversation at times.

When Prop. 215 passed two years ago, Lemos went to a physician he sees in
San Francisco and got a form letter. It says Lemos has AIDS. It also says:
"Please extend to him/her all services to which they are entitled by virtue
of this diagnosis."

The letter clears Lemos with law enforcement, according to the California
Attorney General's Office. He probably wouldn't be prosecuted for possession
unless he was driving under the influence or had more than 28.5 grams of
marijuana, which translates into about 60 cigarettes, says Attorney
General's Office spokesman Matt Ross.

Lemos keeps much less at home and is circumspect about where he lights up.

Never around his daughters. (He was married and is now divorced.) Never
around his five young grandsons. Not at someone else's house.

When he chooses not to smoke marijuana, he takes Marinol pills. It's a
prescription drug. Legal. A pure form of THC, the ingredient in marijuana
that gets people high.

Lemos says Marinol relieves his nausea but works slower than marijuana.

Marijuana vs. Marinol is a big debating point in life after Prop. 215. And
here's something else to stir the pot, so to speak. In 1990, the Drug
Enforcement Administration did a survey, and more than 1,000 oncologists
responded, according to an August 1997 article in The New England Journal of
Medicine. Of doctors who believed they could directly compare the two drugs,
44% said marijuana was more effective; 13% said Marinol was more effective.

This might be important and relevant to a debate that will never end. But
all the surveys and doctors and prestigious medical journals can't obscure a
fact that Lemos considers when he visits the AIDS Memorial Grove in San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

"My daughters are going to bring me out here when I die," he says, basking
in the solitude. He sits on a boulder in a dry creek bed. Redwood, pine and
dogwood trees tower over him.

He wants his girls to scatter some of his ashes in the grove.

Sarah Ramos, 27 of Clovis, is Lemos' oldest daughter. She laughs about her
father trying to keep his illegal pot a secret when she was younger. He'd
pretend to be taking a shower. He'd stuff a rolled-up towel along the bottom
crack of the bathroom door. Ramos could smell it anyway.

Maggie Hill, 24 of Xenia, Ohio, is Lemos' other daughter. As a teen-ager,
she once told her dad: "How can you tell me how to run my life? You're just
a pothead."

Hill, who used to live in Hanford, voted for Prop. 215. She says sick should
be able to use marijuana if it makes them feel better. Statewide, 56% of
people apparently agreed.

And in the Valley? Majorities voted against the proposition. The no vote:
63% in Tulare County, 59% in Kings and Madera counties, 57% in Fresno
County, 56% in Merced County and 52% in Mariposa County.

A PEEK INSIDE CHAMP

The club is cozy and bright. (Actually, "club" is not how Ken Hayes,
executive director, wants CHAMP to be labeled. He calls it "a medicinal
plant dispensary.")

Whatever you call it, the place is welcoming. And intimate - no bigger than
two good-sized living rooms. Two couches armed with plump pillows and
several overstuffed chairs ring a pine coffee table. A CD of Motown hits
plays in the background; the music slides easily between the conversations
going around the coffee table, which is graced by a bouquet of blue,
lace-capped hydrangeas.

It's as if Martha Stewart has freshened up a '60s party scene. Sort of
mellow yellow Martha.

Function, not beauty, characterizes other items on the coffee table. There
are rolling papers to make marijuana cigarettes and antiseptic pads for
water pipes, also used in smoking marijuana.

"That way they can wipe down the pipe if they want to share," says Hayes.
"We're dealing with people who have compromised immune systems."

Hayes says CHAMP has 600 "consumers," 80% of whom have AIDS. They become
CHAMP members by producing a letter from a doctor outlining their medical
condition. Hayes says his staff verifies the doctor's authenticity by
checking state records on the Internet.

Once that's done, customers can buy different grades of marijuana kept in
quart-size Mason jars in a glass sales case. Quality varies and, with it,
price. One-eighth ounce usually ranges from $10 to $55 and makes three to
five cigarettes; a quarter ounce ranges from $18 to $105 and makes seven to
10 cigarettes, according to Hayes.

The marijuana is sold under such jolly names as "Big and Hairy," "Flarfy
Mean Purple" and "X-Mas in July." Hayes says he's trying to get away from
the fun and games by devising new names. "Really, this is plant medicine,"
he says.

Hence, purchases are limited and tracked by computerized records. Usually,
customers can buy a quarter ounce per day.

After buying, some people stay to smoke and chat. Listen in and you catch
the nothingness that lubricates conversations anywhere.

"You're looking good. Like you're feeling better."

"Thanks."

"I spent the weekend on the Russian River."

"Very nice."

But chat up someone as a reporter and things veer from a Seinfeld moment
with the speed of a Kramer entry. The mood gets so serious. Dan Larsen, 35,
leans forward on a wicker couch, his body language suggesting an old man
with wisdom to impart. Marijuana is "medicine," and it's the only thing that
calms his stomach and keeps down the other meds he takes for AIDS, he says.
An eighth of an ounce lasts him about 10 days.

Larsen rails against anyone who thinks Attorney General Dan Lungren, now
running for governor, was justified in his successful battle to close San
Francisco's best-known cannabis club in the spring. The club was run by
Dennis Peron, who helped draft Prop. 215.

(The case sprung from undercover tapes showing minors in possession of
marijuana, toddlers in smoking rooms and marijuana from the club being sold
by street dealers, according to the Attorney General's Office. Peron says he
was "a soft touch" to many who came to his club. But he charges that Lungren
targeted him to destroy the medical marijuana movement.)

"Tell them to get a life," Larsen says of Lungren supporters. "They should
learn more about this disease." He almost growls out the words, making it
impossible not to note the leather dog collar around his neck. Larsen wears
a yellow leather jacket, too, and walks with a cane. His hair is long. He
has the melancholy look of the streets.

Larsen lives in a general ward of a San Francisco hospital and comes to
CHAMP daily for something to do. Hospital officials are OK with the
arrangement, says Hayes, who summarizes Larsen's shrunken existence with a
few, brutal sentences. "His lover broke up with him. He's wasting. He looks
forward to coming here."

It's so different for John Lemos. He still has money and mobility. A
partner, too. And his family.

But the specter of sickness is ever present. "As time goes on, it gets
worse," he says. "In the last year, I've had more episodes."

The worst was pancreatitis in the spring. Lemos says he smoked some
marijuana to help his appetite, but it made the symptoms worse. "I don't
know if it was just in my head, but it didn't work."

Lemos dropped 30 pounds in the spring and even had the minister in to talk
about funeral arrangements. He was determined to die at home.

Recovery from the pancreatitis has been slow, and he still tires easily.

"But all and all, I'm doing pretty well," Lemos says, "especially compared
to a lot of other people."

MAKING A VISIT

Sometimes, Lemos will linger at the club. He says the staff can talk about
pain control other "than being loaded all the time." He's gotten advice on
meditation and soaking in hot tubs.

Clearly, CHAMP wants to be seen as more than a place that sells marijuana.
Two weeks ago, the club even dropped cannabis from its name. CHAMP had stood
for Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems. Now the C stands for
Californians.

Hayes, a smooth-faced 30-year-old who easily slips into crusade mode,
clearly knows a thing or two about marketing. But he insists his work is not
about creating an image.

His voice thick with emotion, Hayes says: "I'm in the business of providing
aid to sick and dying people. Unfortunately there has been a lot of
misportrayal, and I truly believe the media have had a role in that. I've
had media people come in and say, 'Start smoking so we can take pictures.' "

So, CHAMP now bars photographers from the club.

All this, of course, is politics, which is the luxury of people who aren't
sick. Aren't fatigued. Fatigue leaves you flat. Leaves you with the motions
of whatever your life has become. For John Lemos on a brilliant July
afternoon, that next motion is buying marijuana.

He doesn't linger at CHAMP on this day. Can't, in fact. A lab technician's
needle awaits him in another part of the city. Lemos, in stone-washed jeans
and a blue, two-button shirt, tries to decide what to buy.

He settles on an eighth of an ounce of high-grade marijuana nicknamed "I
Dare Ya." Sean Renault, a club employee, weighs the purchase on a digital
scale that's accurate to one-tenth of a gram. Lemos shows his photo ID
membership card; Renault scans Lemos' face for a match and teases: "With
those shades today I thought you were trying to trick me."

Lemos, sporting a pair of Ray-Bans, laughs, too. Then he pays with three
crisp 20s and gets $5, a yellow receipt and a plastic bag of marijuana in
exchange. Turning to go, Lemos explains his San Francisco doctor wants him
in for another blood test. Lemos has a liver problem caused by all the
prescription drugs he takes to fight AIDS.

He moves past the painting of Elvis with Mickey Mouse ears and quickly
negotiates the 19 steps to the street. People on Church Street stroll past
CHAMP. Cars speed by. A bus rumbles. Lemos melts into the crowd and is gone.

But he'll be back, as long as this club stays open.

Checked-by: Don Beck