LET HEALTH WORKERS DISTRIBUTE POT

The recent shutdown of San Francisco's Cannabis Cultivators Club and its
reopening under new leadership closed a chapter in the continuing debate
over medical marijuana. Broader legal questions about the clubs remain.

State and federal efforts to close six medical marijuana cooperatives in
California have raised the thorny question of who should be responsible for
distributing medical marijuana to sick patients if the clubs are permanently
shut down. Recently, when 1 suggested city health workers may be called on
to do the job in San Francisco, I did not make the statement lightly.

Such a plan already has the support of the city Health Commission and many
of our elected officials.

We stand behind the will of California voters, who, in 1996, approved the
medicinal use of marijuana. To make that right effective, patients must have
safe access, not criminal access to marijuana. As the top law enforcement
officer for San Francisco, it is my job to ensure that law is upheld.

I know from my years on the city Board of Supervisors that marijuana
provides relief to many seriously ill people. Unfortunately, the ballot
language of Proposition 215 left vague how local communities should make
marijuana accessible for those who need it. So far, in San Francisco,
cannabis cooperatives have been the most viable and safest distribution
system available. These clubs screen applicants to ensure that they are
genuine patients in medical need and work closely with local health and
police departments to guard against abuse.

My office has inspected community based distribution centers in our county
and found them to be in compliance with protocol adopted by the city Health
Commission.

The federal government, however, is set on shutting down the San Francisco
centers along with cannabis clubs in Oakland, Ukiah, Santa Cruz and Marin
County. The government says the supremacy of federal law is more important
than the suffering of dying patients - and they have a strong ally in state
attorney general Dan Lungren. Lungren, with his eye set on the governor's
seat, has been a staunch opponent of medical marijuana long before
Proposition 215 even came to a vote. Now he is warning that there will be
reprisals against city officials if the city assumes responsibility for
distributing medical marijuana.

The threats are completely misplaced. Community-based patient cooperatives
are a valuable public health service, distributing marijuana to about 11,000
San Franciscans who suffer from cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening and
debilitating illnesses. If the clubs are shut down - and if cities do not
offer an alternative - we risk an outbreak of unregulated and unregulatable
criminal activity by patients, many of whom will be forced to hit the
streets for marijuana. Our parks and neighborhoods will be blighted, our
courts will be needlessly tied up and local law enforcement agencies will be
overburdened.

If it were up to me, community-based cooperatives working with local
officials and supervised by the local health department would continue to
act as medical marijuana distribution centers. But if Lungren and the
federal government successfully shut them down, cities must seriously look
into developing distribution plans that will implement the will of the
voters. The other alternative flies in the face of human compassion and good
sense.