SAN JOSE POT CLUB SHUTS DOWN

Assets Seized -- Director Faces 6 Felony Charges

With singer Joan Baez providing some star appeal and several sick people
offering some sad reality, San Jose's medical marijuana center closed its
doors yesterday.

Baez appeared in support of her cousin Peter Baez, the center's executive
director, who is battling both legal troubles and colon cancer.

The folk singer, famous for her support of political causes since the
1960s, said the marijuana dispensary's demise could be attributed to an
attempt by local law enforcement to ``impress a certain narrow segment of
society.''

"`Pot center busted' looks good,'' she said. "This has been a clean and
legal operation. Peter has been meticulous about that. Forcing it to close
is just some righteousness about stomping out drugs, and not even a
realistic attempt at that.''

The center's director was charged with selling marijuana without a valid
doctor's recommendation on March 23. After the center's patient files were
searched, county prosecutors filed five more felony counts against Baez and
seized a bank account holding about $29,000.

Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Denise Raabe said that Baez's
prosecution "isn't some governmental crackdown. Peter Baez didn't follow
the rules. He violated the law." Legally, Raabe said, the center can still
remain open if it follows state law, which requires a recommendation from a
doctor to dispense medical marijuana.

But Baez, who is out on bail, said yesterday that the center is unable to
pay its growers and rent and is forced to close its doors.

Yesterday, he talked about reopening if a hearing Monday gives him access
to the center's bank account, but county prosecutors say the account will
most likely remain frozen until the case against him is decided.

Baez faces a preliminary hearing on the felony charges June 16.

The mood at the closing gathering was mock funereal.

One of the center's patients, who called herself Rose, wore black from head
to toe, including a lace veil concealing her face. She pretended to sob as
she spoke to reporters and dropped rose petals on the clinic floor while
singing ``Amazing Grace'' to a circle of the clinic's supporters.

But some of those present at the closing were less theatrical about the
possibility that medically prescribed marijuana will no longer be available
to them. Lorraine Jones started coming to the marijuana clinic six months
ago, just after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed.

She said the center's closure and other attacks on the dispensing of
marijuana threaten the lives of patients undergoing chemotherapy who cannot
eat because of nausea. ``A lot of women are in the same position that I
am,'' the 65- year-old saleswoman from Santa Clara said. ``They can't eat.
They literally waste away.''

Thirty-six-year-old Alan Proz, who suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, said
that as long as the Santa Clara County club is closed, he will travel to
San Francisco's Cannabis Healing Center to get marijuana to help control
his pain and muscle spasticity. Proz is in a wheelchair. From his home in
San Jose, he will need to travel on three buses and BART to reach the San
Francisco club.

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle

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