POT CLUBS FACE TOUGH LEGAL CHALLENGE

From a purely legal standpoint, California's medicinal marijuana clubs may
be facing their Waterloo this week when the U.S. Justice Department takes
its case against voter-approved Proposition 215 before a federal judge in
San Francisco.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday
in the Justice Department's bid to shut six Northern California clubs,
including the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, owned by Proposition 215
co-author Dennis Peron.

In a lawsuit filed last month that threatens to eviscerate the state's
medicinal cannabis law, the Clinton administration takes the position that
the initiative is in direct conflict with the federal ban on pot.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and other local officials may be placing
some political heat on the administration for its tough stance on the
medicinal pot issue, but the law does not appear to be on their side. In
fact, there is little in the way of legal precedent or in the opinions of
law professors and attorneys to suggest that the federal government's legal
position is wrong.

Despite some novel attempts to carve out an exception to the federal
government's power to enforce drug laws, legal experts say there is only a
slim chance that the courts will side with the clubs' argument that the
state's 1 1/2-year-old medicinal marijuana law can survive the federal
challenge.

``If the feds want to enforce a federal statute, the California initiative
is pre-empted,'' said Jesse Choper, a constitutional law scholar and former
dean of Boalt Hall School of Law. ``It's a very basic point.''

Added Hastings College of the Law Professor Rory Little, a former federal
prosecutor and appellate specialist: ``(The clubs) don't have an Achilles'
heel. They have an Achilles' body.''

For the state's pot clubs, the stakes in the federal case are do-or-die. A
finding by the federal courts that Proposition 215 is barred by federal
drug laws could spell a quick end to California's medicinal pot experiment.

The Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center in San Jose, which has been
supported by local authorities, is not a target of the Justice Department's
suit, but a half-dozen other Northern California clubs are named in it.
Those include two clubs in San Francisco and four in Santa Cruz, Marin,
Oakland and Ukiah.

Unlike recent state appellate court decisions restricting the clubs'
ability to sell medicinal marijuana -- which have left some wriggle room
for further court battles -- a loss in the federal case could abort the
medicinal pot movement in California and other states.

Officials familiar with the Justice Department's position say that if the
government prevails in the case against the six Northern California clubs,
it will quickly send warning letters to the other roughly dozen clubs
operating in the state, asking them to close voluntarily.

However, that day may be a year or more down the road because whatever
Breyer decides, it is certain to be appealed, perhaps eventually to the
U.S. Supreme Court.

The six clubs in the case have joined forces to fight off the federal challenge.

San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, an outspoken critic of
efforts by the Justice Department and state Attorney General Dan Lungren to
close the clubs, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the judge to
allow the clubs to remain open.