MARIJUANA CLUBS' FATE UP TO JUDGE

A San Francisco federal judge said yesterday he'll decide whether to close
six Northern California medical marijuana clubs after he receives final
briefs on the case on April 16.

The announcement by U.S. District judge Charles Breyer followed four hours
of testimony by a federal prosecutor and several attorneys representing the
clubs' owners. Two of the clubs are in San Francisco, and one each are in
Oakland, Ukiah, Marin and Santa Cruz.

San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan also testified, appearing
as a friend of the court on the behalf of the club owners.

Mark Quinlivan, a U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer, argued that the
cannabis clubs are illegal under federal law.

``Marijuana is a schedule one drug (like heroin), and it is illegal to
cultivate and distribute it,'' Quinlivan said, ``but that's what the clubs
are doing.'' Cannabis clubs opened in several California cities after the
1996 passage of Proposition 215, which authorized the consumption and
cultivation of the weed for chronically ill people with a physician's
recommendation. According to its proponents, marijuana helps relieve the
pain associated with a variety of diseases, stimulates the appetites of
cancer and AIDS patients and alleviates the effects of chemotherapy.

Quinlivan said ``certain conduct'' involving marijuana may have been
sanctioned under Proposition 215, but that federal law cannot be supplanted
by a state proposition. He said that Congress is the only proper forum for
addressing the legalization or rescheduling of any illegal drug, and that
only the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services could sanction research on the medical efficacy of
marijuana.

``There are research projects under way, and that's one available remedy
for people seeking this substance,'' he said. ``Or people can file to have
the drug rescheduled (with the DEA).''

Defense attorneys scoffed at Quinlivan's contentions.

``The last time a petition was filed to reclassify marijuana was in 1972,
and it wasn't decided until 1994,'' said Gerald Uelman, one of the defense
attorneys. ``Cancer patients can't wait that long.''

Hallinan told Breyer that closing the clubs would cause great hardship for
thousands of sick people and could actually increase crime.

``The situation would be completely unregulated, and people would have to
go back to buying it illegally (on the street),'' he said. ``It would be an
immensely onerous enforcement problem.''

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A16