THE JOINT DEBATE

The NewsHour Reports On The Medical Marijuana Debate In California.

SPENCER MICHELS: Nearly two dozen cannabis clubs, where marijuana is sold
for medicinal purposes, have sprung up in California in the last year.
Their very existence flies in the face of a long-time state policy of
cracking down on drugs. Since 1982, California's law enforcement agencies
have engaged in war on marijuana. Officials of the Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting, CAMP, have swooped down on fields of cannabis and last
year claim to have destroyed 130,000 plants. CAMP operations are overseen
by California Attorney General Dan Lungren.

DAN LUNGREN, California Attorney General: And we've seen a doubling of the
use of marijuana by teenagers across the country. I am concerned about
teenagers who are being sold a lousy bill of goods by adults who say too
bad about the next generation, we went through it in the 60's; we ruined a
lot of lives; it doesn't matter; let 'em ruin some more lives.

SPENCER MICHELS: Despite Lungren's concerns, in 1996, California voters
enacted by a 56 percent majority Proposition 215, which allowed the use of
marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's recommendation. Most of the
medical marijuana sales made under that law take place in buyers clubs like
this one in San Francisco. It was started by marijuana activist Dennis
Peron, who led the fight for Prop 215.

DENNIS PERON, Cannabis Club Founder: We didn't legalize marijuana. What we
did is say we're taking away the criminal penalties for possessing and
selling marijuana to sick and dying people.

SPOKESMAN: Make sure that we have everyone in position. We're going to be
opening very, very shortly.

SPENCER MICHELS: Peron's club opens every morning to a rush of clients
anxious to buy marijuana. They show a club ID card obtained with a doctor's
letter affirming they have medical need for cannabis. And then they are
free to belly up to the bar and buy packages of pot, ranging in price from
$3 to $60 for an 1/8 ounce, depending on the quality. The club gets its
supplies from a number of small growers who claim to cultivate pot
exclusively for medical use. Health worker and club patron Sandy Cala
admits he used to use the drug recreationally, but now it's for health
reasons.

SANDY CALA: Sure. I grew up in Southern California on the beach, and we'd
smoke before hitting the ocean, but yet now it's smoking with a purpose. I
have liver disease, which is the reason for my vomiting. I'd start smoking
pot, and it would completely subside to the point where I don't throw up at
all. And that's the whole idea is keeping my food inside so my body gets
all its nutrients.

SPENCER MICHELS: Another client named "Mike" says he uses pot to reduce
side effects from pills he takes for bone cancer in his jaw.

SPENCER MICHELS: Now, how many joints is that a day? "MIKE": Maybe two. One
in the morning and one mid-afternoon, right after we take our pills and
stuff because you start getting nausea from the pills and stuff.

SPENCER MICHELS: But Attorney General Lungren does not think the club
should be allowed to exist. At a news conference at which confiscated
marijuana and money were displayed he announced civil and criminal charges
were being brought against Peron's club. The complaint alleges that people
who were not patients often bought marijuana. Undercover films were shown
to the press.

DAN LUNGREN: Some of the film showed toddlers in the smoking room receiving
secondhand marijuana smoke. This is a situation in which we saw 13--well
15-year-olds buying marijuana in the place.

SPENCER MICHELS: Peron, who was charged and who had previously done time
for marijuana possession, denies he sold to minors. He attributes his
arrest to another factor.

DENNIS PERON: To the government it is a cultural war that they've been
waging since the 70's, the 60's, and essentially now they're using patients
to continue this cultural war on people that they don't like.

SPENCER MICHELS: The case against the clubs goes beyond just who buys pot.
Lungren contends the clubs have no legal basis to exist because they never
were part of Proposition 215. Further, they don't qualify as a primary care
giver as required under the new law.

DAN LUNGREN: They can't shoehorn in the idea of cannabis buyers clubs
within the definition of primary care giver. Primary care giver is a
relatively simple term to figure out, and cannabis buyers clubs just don't
come within it.

SPOKESMAN: What are our priorities? Where is our compassion?

SPENCER MICHELS: But in San Francisco the clubs get a lot of support from
activists and city officials like San Francisco District Attorney Terence
Hallinan. He says that while the law didn't specifically establish buying
clubs, they were a logical way to distribute the drug.

TERENCE HALLINAN, District Attorney: The one thing that was left out that
was a mechanism by which marijuana was to be distributed to sick people, in
San Francisco we've had these--they call 'em clubs--we call 'em medical
centers--whatever name you choose to call 'em--they operate under a set of
rules adopted by the health commission. My office oversees 'em. We do
surprise pop-in visits. The Health Department has people going and
confirming that they are checking on the recommendations and checking with
the doctors. It works for us.

SPENCER MICHELS: But a state judge sided with the attorney general and this
week, ordered the San Francisco club closed based on the argument that it
is not a primary care giver. Officials in other jurisdictions interpret and
enforce the law differently. The operator of the San Jose cannabis club was
hauled into court recently for allegedly selling marijuana without a valid
medical recommendation after local police raided the club. That club may
soon close. But it's not only some local governments and the state that
want the clubs closed; so does the federal government, which claims all
marijuana use is illegal. The U.S. Attorney's Office recently filed a civil
suit to close down six cannabis clubs in Northern California.

MICHAEL YAMAGUCHI, U.S. Attorney: The issue is not the medical use of
marijuana; it is the persistent violation of federal law. And I'd like to
emphasize that. Again, it is not the medical use of marijuana; it's the
violation of federal law that's important here.

SPENCER MICHELS: At a press conference U.S. Attorney Michael Yamaguchi
cited violations of the Federal Controlled Substances Act, which prohibits
distribution or possession of marijuana unless the Food & Drug
Administration approves.

MICHAEL YAMAGUCHI: Under our system of federalism laws by Congress cannot
be overridden or supplanted by state law. Federal laws continues to
prohibit the distribution of marijuana at the cannabis clubs.

SPENCER MICHELS: But a pack of attorneys for the clubs contend there are
conflicting constitutional issues. William Panzer represents a buyers club
in Oakland.

WILLIAM PANZER, Cannabis Club Attorney: Every American citizen enjoys
what's called a substantive due process right, a fundamental constitutional
right to life, to bodily integrity, to be allowed treatment for
excruciating pain. The government, in essence, has taken the position that
the world is flat. When all the evidence is there, the science is there,
unequivocally that the world is round here, unequivocally that medical
marijuana is an effective, very safe medicine for use for a number of
ailments.

SPENCER MICHELS: Yamaguchi rejects the constitutional argument and as a
legal matter, the medical use of pot as well.

MICHAEL YAMAGUCHI: Marijuana has no currently accepted medical use in the
United States, and it's not been approved by federal health officials to
treat any diseases or conditions.

SPENCER MICHELS: Yamaguchi's federal suit brought quick denunciations not
just from these advocates but from the mayors of four cities, including San
Francisco's Mayor, Willie Brown.

MAYOR WILLIE BROWN, San Francisco: I wrote a letter recommending to the
president that he instruct the Justice Department to work out some
arrangement with not only this local government but all local governments,
so that, in fact, the administration of marijuana to people who are
terminally ill and who find that as the only method of relief, that that
opportunity can be afforded then. That's not flaunting the law. That's
complying with the law.

SPENCER MICHELS: Officials in San Francisco marching to what they claim to
be the beat of the pro 215 voters say that if the federal court closes down
the cannabis clubs, city health workers could distribute marijuana to
patients instead.

TERENCE HALLINAN: I don't see it as thumbing its nose. I see it as us
saying, hey, guys, look, we've found something here that works. The health
authorities of a city have authority under federal law and regulation to
distribute drugs that otherwise would be illegal if they were distributing,
if they're doing it in compliance with local laws and ordinances.

DR. DAVID SMITH, Haight Ashbury Clinic: The real barrier is getting them
into care.

SPENCER MICHELS: Dr. David Smith, who has run a free clinic in San
Francisco's Haight Ashbury District since the 60's, says all these legal
and medical arguments are being used for political gain.

DR. DAVID SMITH: There is such a blurring of the medical issues, and it
appears to me that both sides of this ideological debate use whatever
evidence they want in order to support their ideology.

SPENCER MICHELS: Smith says many of the problems with medical marijuana
could be solved if it didn't take the same form as the recreational drug.
The clubs, he says, deliver medical marijuana in the wrong way, smoked in
cigarettes or pipes full of harmful impurities

DR. DAVID SMITH: It is not the way medicine is delivered; therefore, what
we need to do is to open up the medical system so that they can get the
medication they need in a pure form that looks medical. For example, if a
pain patient in a hospital needs morphine, we have a delivery system for
morphine for pain that's medical. We don't say, well, the patient should
tie up and shoot up in the ward like the heroin addicts do on the street.

SPENCER MICHELS: Smith would like a smoke-free inhaled form of marijuana
bought at a drugstore prescription counter like an asthma inhaler. The
American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health favor
research on that idea. The federal case against California cannabis clubs
will be decided shortly. The state court order to close the San Francisco
club is being appealed. Meanwhile, initiative drives are underway in seven
other states and the District of Columbia to legalize medical marijuana.

JIM LEHRER: And yesterday Dennis Peron announced the Cannabis Cultivators
Club was going out of business and will reopen as the Cannabis Healing
Center. Peron said the new club will be run by a 78-year-old woman who will
provide marijuana only to patients. He claims the club will then conform to
California law.

Copyright © 1998 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and PBS