OAKLAND OKS LAX MEDICAL POT LAW

Would let patients possess 1-1/4 pounds

Unanimously and without discussion, the Oakland City Council established on
Tuesday the state's most permissive medical marijuana guidelines.

Henceforth, medical marijuana users in Oakland may hold a stash of 1-1/4
pounds - equivalent to 30 outdoor flowering plants or 48 indoor plants -
without fear of arrest.

For the time being.

What appears to be the definitive test case for California's medical
marijuana law - enacted in 1996 as Proposition 215 - is brewing in federal
court in San Francisco. Among the defendants is the Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative of Oakland, which helped develop the guidelines.

Those guidelines, developed by a committee of police, patients, physicians
and Oakland's legal staff as well as the buyers cooperative, far exceed the
limit set by Attorney General Dan Lungren.

As far as Lungren is concerned, the limit is two plants or an ounce of
marijuana which, by his calculations, is equivalent to a 30-day supply.

Lungren could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the Oakland law.

Jeff Jones, executive director of the 1,700-member Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative, said the council's passage of the guidelines vetted by its
Public Health and Safety Committee kept the city "on the leading edge of
this issue."

Jones noted that Oakland modeled its guidelines after those of an ongoing
federal experiment, the Compassionate Investigative New Drug Program. That
program rations medical marijuana users to half a pound a month or about 10
cigarettes per day. Just eight patients are currently participating in the
federal program, Jones said.

The guidelines are "already being implemented by the police department,
which is working with us to make sure these medical patients aren't being
harassed," Jones said.

"Police don't want to arrest patients who are legitimately using
marijuana," and are able to provide documentary proof that they are, Jones
said. But under the guidelines "somebody possessing marijuana for sale or
for personal use that's not medical will be cited and arrested."

Oakland's Cannabis Buyers Cooperative has taken a much different,
non-confrontational approach to winning approval for the possession and use
of medical marijuana than its San Francisco counterpart.

That organization, called the Cannabis Healing Center in its last
incarnation, folded in May after a year of fractious encounters with
Lungren. Under founder and chief spokesman Dennis Peron, the organization
seemed to go out of its way to thumb its nose at the law. Superior Court
Judge William Cahill ruled the center at 1444 Market St. a public nuisance,
and it was padlocked on May 25.

1998 San Francisco Examiner Page A 7

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski