CANNABIS CLUB BACKERS SEEK ALTERNATIVES

SAN FRANCISCO--Spurred by a federal court ruling ordering six Northern
California cannabis clubs to close, medical marijuana advocates joined
state and local officials Monday in calling for a search for alternative
ways to get pot to sick people.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos announced that he will sponsor a May 26 summit
in Sacramento to study other ways to distribute the drug. The Santa Clara
Democrat was joined Monday by police, prosecutors and public health
officials who say they want to make the medical marijuana law approved by
California work.

"It is very clear to me that, under Proposition 215, the majority of the
people here in California want to have seriously ill people have access to
medical marijuana," said Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. George Kennedy, who
is president of the California District Attorneys Assn.

"The best way to work it out is for law enforcement to work with public
health and other officials to try and implement the will of the people."

The 1996 state initiative said AIDS patients and others can use marijuana
with a doctor's recommendation. State and federal prosecutors, however,
have launched a legal war against clubs selling the drug, saying that the
law did not legalize the clubs or any other kind of distribution.

Vasconcellos said that the law "has been under siege" and that state
officials must show voters that "we heard their voice and hope to uphold
the law they passed."

"We want to find a way that provides safe access that doesn't allow for
diversion to nonmedicinal purposes," he said Monday. In San Francisco,
Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan is trying to devise a way for the city to
distribute marijuana to patients that will not provoke either the U.S.
Justice Department or state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

Hallinan said he was encouraged that U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, in
his ruling last week ordering the six Northern California clubs to close,
left the door open for the city to fashion its own distribution plan.

Hallinan said he resents that state and federal authorities are "sticking
their noses into San Francisco, trying to make it as difficult as possible
to fulfill Proposition 215," in a city where 80% of voters approved the
initiative. But "between Lungren and the federal government, it looks like
it is going to be very difficult for a club, as such, to operate," he said.

The prosecutor said Judge Breyer noted in his ruling that the federal
government has not filed suit against San Francisco for allowing the
distribution of clean hypodermic needles to addicts, although that
distribution violates federal law.

Hallinan said the judge was hinting that the same might hold true if San
Francisco were to find a more low-profile way to distribute marijuana. "It
was almost a challenge, and I intend to follow up on it," Hallinan said.

He said he has met with Mayor Willie Brown and with health department
officials to discuss ways that the city and county of San Francisco could
distribute marijuana through its health department.

"My feeling is that if it is done properly, by a health department, and
supervised and run as Breyer says--tightly--the federal government will
pass on it, as they do with the needle exchange," Hallinan said. "What they
are really after is to close down these centers."

In Los Angeles, Jonathan Fielding, the county director of public health,
said he is watching San Francisco's efforts and will attend the Sacramento
summit.

"We are certainly anxious in this county to avoid some of the issues and
problems that have occurred in Northern California," Fielding said. Los
Angeles County's only medical marijuana club--the Los Angeles Cannabis
Club--is not named in Breyer's ruling, which takes effect this week.

Breyer said the clubs must close because their sales of marijuana violate
federal drug laws. His ruling means that federal drug enforcement officials
can raid the clubs at any time. Although the judge mentioned only the
Northern California clubs, the U.S. Justice Department has notified federal
prosecutors statewide that the six other clubs operating across the state
should close voluntarily, in light of the order.

Operators of cannabis clubs in Berkeley and San Francisco have said they
will remain open and risk being held in contempt of court. U.S.Justice
Department officials declined to participate in next week's summit before
the state Senate Committee on Public Safety, which Vasconcellos heads.
John Gordnier, the state deputy attorney attorney, will represent Lungren
but only to repeat the attorney general's interpretation of the law--that
it does not legalize any form of distribution.

Dennis Peron, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor,was
not invited. Peron founded San Francisco's Cannabis Club, which remains
the largest in the state. It has also been the club most hotly pursued by
state and federal law enforcement officials. With about 9,000 clients, the
club operates as a giant marijuana production and sales center, and some
medical marijuana advocates view it as a liability to the movement.

Copyright Los Angeles Times

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)