MAYORS ASK CLINTON TO LEAVE POT CLUBS ALONE

Six cities affected by U.S. order to close

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Four California mayors appealed to President Clinton
on Wednesday to drop federal lawsuits against medical marijuana clubs
operating within their cities.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, along with the mayors of Oakland, Santa
Cruz and West Hollywood, said closing the facilities would hurt clients who
suffer from AIDS, cancer and other diseases and who use marijuana from the
clubs to ease their pain and nausea.

``If the centers are shut down, many of these 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 departments,'' the mayors wrote.

Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney Michael Yamaguchi filed civil suits
against medical marijuana clubs in six cities. A hearing in San Francisco
on those suits is scheduled for March 24.

These federal suits target only the clubs -- two in San Francisco and one
each in Oakland, southern Marin County, Santa Cruz and Ukiah -- and their
operators, not individual patients. The Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis
Center is not one of the clubs targeted by the lawsuit.

Most of the medical marijuana facilities were started after the November
1996 passage of Proposition 215, which changed state law to allow patients
suffering from cancer, AIDS, glaucoma or a variety of other illnesses to
possess and grow marijuana for medical use, with a doctor's recommendation.

But at least one facility, now called the Cannabis Cultivators Club, has
operated for years in San Francisco with the tacit approval of local law
enforcement. Its controversial founder, Dennis Peron, co-authored
Proposition 215.