LUNGREN PUSHES CLOSING POT CLUB

San Fransisco (AP) - Describing San Frasisco's major medicinal marijuana
club as a "drug house," a state lawyer urged a judge Friday to change his
mind and order the club closed immediately.

The latest faceoff between Attorney General Dan Lungren's office and Dennis
Peron, founder of the Cannabis Cultivator's Club, took place in a courtroom
packed with Peron's clients and supporters and presided over by a judge who
has issued a tentative ruling in Peron's favor.

Superior Court Judge David Garcia's decision, issued before the hearing to
guide lawyers' arguments, was to deny closure of the club and send
Lungren's civil suit to a jury trial, scheduled for April 27.

Garcia said there appeared to be a question about whether or not Peron and
his club could qualify as "primary caregivers" allowed to furnish medicinal
marijuana under the state's voter-approved Proposition 215.

The November 1996 initiative, sponsored by Peron, allows patients or their
primary care-givers to cultivate and possess marijuana if recommentded by a
doctor to treat the effects of AIDS, cancer therapy and other illnesses.

Senior Assistant Attorney General John Gordnier told Garcia: "Drug houses
like the one Mr. Peron operates are not sanctioned by the voters. He wants
to continue to provide drugs to thousands, and the court of appeal has said
you can't do that."

Peron's lawyer, J. David Nick, argued that the appellate court had merely
denied the "primary care-giver" label to businesses that sold marijuana to
patients coming in off the street, without establishing a long-term
exclusive relationship of providing health care.

He said he could show that Peron, since passage of Propostition 215, was
acting legally as the exclusive care-giver for his clients, charging them
only for the cost of growing and providing marijuana.

"This man is doing the work of God," Nick said, as Peron sat in the front row.

Garcia said he would rule soon.

The U.S. Justice Department is also seeking to close six medicinal
marijuana clubs in Northern California, including Peron's, the oldest and
largest. The Clinton Administration contends the clubs violate federal
laws against possessing and furnishing marijuana, regardless of Proposition
215. A federal judge has deferred a ruling until after a final round of
written arguments, due April 16.

That federal suit does not include the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis
Center in San Jose -- a facility that experts say also should remain
unscathed by Lungren's efforts to close Peron's operation. On Monday, San
Jose center co-founder Peter Baez is scheduled to be arraigned in Santa
Clara County Municipal Court on a felony charge of illegally selling pot.

Peron's club, then called the Cannabis Buyers' Club, has been allowed to
operate by San Fransisco authorities. But Lungren ordered a raid in August
1996 by state agents, who said they seized large amounts of marijuana,
found minors on the premises and saw marijuana being sold to customers who
lacked a doctor's recommendation.

Lungren obtained a criminal indictment from an Alameda County grand jury
against Peron and five others. He also got an injunction shutting down the
club.

But Garcia allowed it to be reopened after Proposition 215 passed, saying
the initiative allowed the club to act as a primary caregiver and provide
marijuana to patients unable to get it themselves.

The 1st District Court of Appeal overruled Garcia and said the club was not
a primary caregiver, a ruling Lungren's office contends could be used to
close all the state's pot clubs.

But the ruling did not prohibit charging patients for the cost of growing
and supplying the marijuana, and specified that someone like a hospital
administrator could be the primary caregiver for multiple patients --
language that Peron contends could be applied to him.