MEDICAL MARIJUANA WARS

SAN FRANCISCO'S marijuana wars are heating up again, with a needless
showdown in the making. Facing a legal onslaught by federal cannabis
hunters, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and District Attorney Terence
Hallinan are defending the local medical marijuana operation run by a
private group. Brown wants it left alone to dispense marijuana to the sick
and dying. Hallinan is even more defiant. If the Feds shut down the
Cannabis Buyers' Club, then the city's public health department should set
up shop in its place, he believes.

This head-on collision should be avoided. Since passage of Proposition 215,
which authorized selling marijuana as a pain killer to those in medical
need, all sides have shouted out their interpretation. Pot advocates,
especially in San Francisco, set up a loosely run dispensary that has
taunted federal and state drug-hunters. But other programs have worked
closely with law enforcement to set up more rigorous operations.

A bill by Senator John Vasconcellos, D- San Jose, may offer a way out of
this legal impasse. Convene a group representing all sides and work out
hard-headed ground rules for cultivating and dispensing marijuana to those
in need, his bill suggests. Prop. 215 danced around the problem area of how
to grow pot by ignoring the subject, and it pinned the job of distributing
the drug on vaguely-defined ``care givers.''

These are major gray areas that need better definition, and the
Vasconcellos bill could produce a useful agreement. Meanwhile, four
California mayors -- including Brown and Elihu Harris of Oakland, and the
mayors of Santa Cruz and West Hollywood, have appealed to President Clinton
to drop the federal lawsuits against the marijuana clubs. Brown told
Clinton that patients who need medical marijuana should not be forced into
``back alleys and street corners.''

The humane use of marijuana to allay pain is the goal here, not more court
fights.

All of the parties involved in this issue need to look for a compromise
that respects the clear will of the voters, which was to make marijuana
available to those with a legitimate medical need for it. The solution
should do no more and no less.

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle