FRISCO FIGHTS TO SELL DOPE

San Francisco is at war with Washington and the issue, dramatised in a
march through California's fairest city last week, is cannabis use. The
outcome of the war could be San Francisco becoming the first city in the
world officially to provide cannabis to its citizens.

At stake is the survival of a Californian initiative, approved as
Proposition 215 in a statewide referendum in November 1996, allowing for
the growth and distribution of marijuana when the purposes are medicinal.
US federal law forbids the growth and distribution of marijuana in all
circumstances. Six "cannabis clubs", shops where the sick can buy marijuana
with doctor's prescriptions, are facing closure on instructions from the
Justice Department in Washington.

In a measure of how uniquely tolerant San Francisco is in a nation not
celebrated for its broad-mindedness, the city's district attorney took part
in Tuesday's march and addressed a crowd of several hundred. Terence
Hallinan, San Francisco's top law enforcement officer, issued a challenge
to the federal government in Washington.

He said that if Washington enforced the law, San Francisco would flout it.
City health officials and police would combine, he said, to run marijuana
distribution centres for the seriously ill. The alternative would be not
only greater suffering for people with Aids, glaucoma and cancer, but also
increased crime.

Upon learning of Mr Hallinan's challenge federal government officials said
if he acted on his words he would be jailed. It would be interesting to see
if Washington had the courage to act on such a threat. For not only do the
majority of California voters approve of Proposition 215, so does San
Francisco's hugely popular mayor, Willie Brown.

He was one of three California mayors who wrote to President Clinton
recently imploring him to stop the Justice Department from shutting down
the marijuana dispensaries.

"At stake is the well-being of 11,000 California residents who depend on
the dispensaries to help them battle the debilitating effects of Aids,
cancer and other serious illnesses," Mayor Brown wrote. "If the centres are
shut, many individuals will be compelled to search back alleys and street
corners for their medicine. This will not only endanger their lives, but
place an unnecessary burden on our local police department."

The owner of one dispensary, Peter Baez, was arrested on Monday and
released on bail on Tuesday. His cousin, Joan Baez, denounced the
''farcical charges" against him.