CALIFORNIA MARIJUANA DISTRIBUTION CONTINUES DESPITE JUDGE'S ORDER

OAKLAND, Calif. (May 21, 1998 4:56 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) -- The
smell of burning marijuana filled the air Thursday at the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers Club, which opened for business as usual despite a judge's order
banning distribution of the drug.

"We're willing to let this be decided by a jury," said Jeff Jones, director
of the club, which lists 1,700 patients. "We're willing to go to court."

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's final order was made public Wednesday.
In a preliminary ruling May 13, he said the November 1996 initiative that
legalized medical marijuana under California law did not override the
federal ban on the drug.

The ruling did nothing to stop the Oakland club, which served about 50
clients in the first half hour Thursday. Pot ranged in price from $5 to $16
a gram. Brownies, muffins and cereal treats laced with the drug also were
available.

"It's good for appetite stimulation," said Rodney Wilson, 51, who has AIDS
and said he lost 57 pounds after his diagnosis in 1995.

"It also helps release some of the stress from AIDS," he said. "You deal
with a lot of stress when you have AIDS; financial disasters,
hospitalization and things like that."

The Cannabis Healing Center in San Francisco also opened Thursday.

In his ruling, Breyer rejected arguments that the clubs' customers cannot
survive without marijuana to ease the pain and side effects of cancer and
AIDS therapy.

The ruling covers only the six clubs the Justice Department targeted: two
in San Francisco and one each in Oakland, southern Marin County, Santa Cruz
and Ukiah. But Breyer's reasoning could apply to any of the more than 30
medical marijuana clubs in California, most of which sprang up after the
ballot initiative.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski