MAKING A MESS OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

UNDER Proposition 215, Californians can use marijuana to restore an
appetite lost to AIDS, to control the nausea of chemotherapy, to relieve
the muscle spasms of multiple sclerosis, to ease the symptoms of glaucoma.

If they can get it. Which they can't, unless they're healthy enough to
start a garden or desperate enough to buy it on the street.

In November, 1996, California voters made it legal to use marijuana on a
doctor's recommendation. But Proposition 215 didn't set up a system to get
medicinal marijuana lawfully to people who need it.

The medical benefits of marijuana are clear, says Karen Sinunu, assistant
district attorney in Santa Clara County. What's not clear is how to ensure
that cannabis dispensers keep track of patients, physicians, caregivers,
drug inventory and money. ``It's almost unworkable.''

Tomorrow, state Sen. John Vasconcellos' Public Safety Committee will hold a
Medicinal Marijuana Distribution Summit in Sacramento. District attorneys,
police chiefs, health officials and cannabis club operators will talk about
how to deal with ``the lag between law and reality,'' as San Mateo County
Supervisor Michael Nevin puts it.

The goal is to find a workable state distribution model, says Rand Martin,
Vasconcellos' aide.

San Jose's cannabis club shut down recently when its co-founder was
arrested for selling marijuana without a physician's recommendation, and
other charges.

Then U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ordered the closure of medicinal
marijuana clubs in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Oakland, Marin County and
Ukiah. ``A state law which purports to legalize the distribution of
marijuana for any purpose . . . even a laudable one . . . directly
conflicts with federal law,'' Breyer wrote last week.

Attorney General Dan Lungren is sending someone to testify at Vasconcellos'
summit. But the U.S. Justice Department isn't interested. ``It's Chinese
water torture with the federal government to get them to acknowledge the
will of the voters,'' Martin says.

The state's 30 medicinal marijuana clubs have operated in a gray area,
usually tolerated or supported by local authorities, often harassed by
state and federal agents.

Federal undercover agents come in with identification, a doctor's
recommendation verifiable by phone and a valid medical license number, says
Jeff Jones, director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. He'd be
happy to let the county health department screen patients who seek
marijuana, relieving clubs of the burden of deciding who's legit.

Sinunu agrees. ``We need the health department to do the physician
verification.''

It would be simple if doctors could write a prescription to be filled at a
pharmacy. But the federal government has put more restrictions on marijuana
than on morphine or cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a dangerous drug
with no medical use.

This is nonsense, and the government knows it. In 1988, after two years of
hearings, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law
judge, Frank Young, recommended reclassifying marijuana, so it could be
prescribed. ``It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the
DEA to continue to stand between these sufferers and the benefit of this
substance,'' Young wrote. Nothing happened.

When Proposition 215 passed, the federal drug czar threatened physicians
with the loss of their right to prescribe drugs if they told patients that
marijuana might help their symptoms. A court ruling put the kibosh on that
tactic.

But Lungren won a ruling in state court saying that cannabis dispensaries
don't qualify as ``primary caregivers,'' and therefore can't supply
patients, even with valid physicians' recommendations.

Then came the federal court order. Cannabis clubs are defying Breyer's
order, openly supplying their patients. But how long can that last before
operators are arrested?

Forcing marijuana distribution underground is dangerous, argues Supervisor
Nevin, a former police inspector. When a cannabis center was proposed for a
low-income neighborhood in San Mateo County, the supervisors said: There's
got to be a better way. ``We have public clinics and pharmacies where we
distribute other drugs,'' says Nevin. ``Why would I give that
responsibility to a cannabis club?''

If the public health department dispenses marijuana, it will be easy to
control quality, verify patients' need and remove the profit motive, he
argues. ``We're taking the underground out of it.''

But the county needs a federal OK.

San Mateo supervisors voted 3-1 to approve $50,000 in initial funding for a
three-year, $500,000 study of the effectiveness of marijuana to treat
nausea triggered by chemotherapy and AIDS-related weight loss. County
officials are going to Washington next month to seek authorization for
clinical trials.

But the DEA has blocked studies that could give physicians information
they'd need to write prescriptions: how much marijuana is useful for which
conditions in what circumstances. It's a long shot.

There's a reason that health and law enforcement officials are trying hard
to make Proposition 215 work, despite the challenges. In San Mateo County,
the reason is deputy health director Joni Commons, who died in January
after a long battle with breast cancer. She told colleagues that marijuana
was the only drug that relieved the nausea of chemotherapy. She got it from
her children.

Checked-by: Richard Lake