NEW MEDICAL-POT CLUB ALLOWED TO STAY OPEN

A San Francisco judge refused Wednesday to order the immediate shutdown of a
medical marijuana club that opened a day after the Cannabis Cultivators
Club, on the same site,was closed by court order.

Superior Court Judge William Cahill instead told the new Cannabis Healing
Center to curb drug sales and other illegal activities within 150 feet of
its premises and appear at a hearing June 4,along with Attorney General Dan
Lungren's office, to see if drug laws are being broken inside the club. The
club operates under Proposition 215, the November 1996 initiative that
allowed patients to use marijuana for side effects of cancer therapy, AIDS
and other illnesses with a doctor's recommendation.

The Cannabis Cultivators Club supplied marijuana to about 9,000 patients and
was run by Dennis Peron, author of Prop. 215.

A state appeals court last year that the club, a commercial entity that
served patients coming off the street, was not a "primary caregiver"
authorized by Prop.215 to provide marijuana. Lungren went to court for a
shutdown order.