ACCUSED VS. HIS ACCUSER IN RACE FOR GOVERNOR: POT BACKER UNFAZED BY FACING
LUNGREN

His supporters call him a visionary, a man ahead of his time who has helped
ease the suffering of thousands of sick and dying.

His primary-election opponent has had him indicted on felony charges.

He's Dennis Peron, who calls himself a Republican -- one who would like to
decriminalize marijuana and, while he's at it, zap the speed limit on
Interstate 5.

Needless to say, Peron is not your ordinary GOP candidate for governor of
California. One of the state's most outspoken boosters of marijuana, Peron
has declared that he will run in the June primary against state Attorney
General Dan Lungren.

Founder of a high-profile but embattled San Francisco medical marijuana
club, now called the Cannabis Cultivators Club, Peron was co-author of the
successful 1996 medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215.

But he is now under grand jury indictment after Lungren and narcotics
agents alleged -- during the Proposition 215 campaign -- that the club also
was selling to minors and those with no medical need.

The fact that many say Peron has no chance of winning the governorship, or
is only running to jab back at Lungren, doesn't seem to have deterred him
in the least.

"I am a candidate. . . . I am running against my good buddy, Danny," the
San Francisco resident said in an interview. "I know everything is against
me; I have all these clouds over my head from the courts. But I feel
compelled to do this because there is such injustice in this state."

For the 51-year-old Vietnam veteran, Peron's promised race for governor is
only one skirmish in what he described last week as a lifetime series of
wars and battles. A draftee, he said his adult outlook on life and politics
began to emerge when he was loading body bags with the remains of other
young soldiers.

It's been a highly controversial and often rocky road for Peron.While he
has pleaded "morally not guilty" to the current criminal charges and calls
the case political, Peron was once described in a news report as "a fixture
on San Francisco's drug scene" since the mid-1970s and "a genial street
scoundrel." He previously has served time for marijuana-related crimes.

On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that
Peron's club is not a "caregiver" under Proposition 215, which lets
seriously ill people and their caregivers possess marijuana.

Some of those in the national medical marijuana movement have distanced
themselves from Peron or are at least reluctant to talk about his roles in
the movement and the governor's race.

"I think I'd rather just not touch this one," said Chuck Thomas of the
Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.

Dave Fratello of Americans for Medical Rights, which conducted much of the
statewide campaign for Proposition 215, said a "balanced" view would
conclude that Peron is in many ways a creature of San Francisco, a city
that does not reflect mainstream America.

"One thing that is clear and true is that many people in the movement view
Dennis as something of a prophet or visionary. And I guess that means that
in their own very different ways, Dan Lungren and Dennis Peron have both
done great things for the medical marijuana movement -- Lungren by staking
out a hard line and Dennis by pushing the envelope," Fratello said. "Our
sense is that the people are somewhere in between."

When Peron first announced his plan to run for governor, Lungren, a man
with a law-and-order reputation, had this to say: "If Dennis Peron is
running for governor on the Republican ticket, he has smoked more marijuana
than even I thought."

On Friday, Lungren campaign spokeswoman Sara Brown added, "I don't know if
anybody takes seriously a candidate who is under criminal indictment."

While Lungren opposed Proposition 215, a spokesman for the attorney
general's office has previously rejected as "frivolous" Peron's contention
that the criminal case is political.Mike Madrid, political director for the
state Republican Party, said party officials do not view Peron as a serious
candidate or one who reflects the party's positions.

Speaking for himself, Peron declared that his marijuana club has operated
legally under Proposition 215 and that his critics in the medical marijuana
movement simply "want me to shut up." "Some people (in the movement) feel
that if we act like goody two-shoes, then we play Dennis as the bad guy.
But how can I hide the club here? I am honest and open, and I think that is
what they don't like," Peron said.

A self-described "old hippie" and idealist, he said he intends to run a
low-budget gubernatorial campaign that reaches out to gays and other
minorities, college students and the "disenfranchised."

Peron, who is gay, said his crusade for the medical use of marijuana
stemmed from the 1990 death of his partner from AIDS.

Before his partner's death, "Marijuana was the one drug that eased his
nausea and stimulated his appetite. . . . When he died, I dedicated my life
to all the suffering Jonathans that were being pushed out of society and
denied a medicine for purely political reasons."

But if elected, Peron promised to go further and seek to have marijuana
legalized for all adults.

"I would push for total decriminalization of marijuana, and I would pardon
any prisoner in prison for nonviolent marijuana offenses," he said, arguing
that such a move would free up courts and police to go after violent crime.

Among other things, he also said he would support abortion rights,
eliminate both the sales tax and "corporate welfare," raise the minimum
wage, champion minority rights, open the border with Mexico, house the
homeless and protect the environment.

He also said that while reckless driving laws should be maintained, "the
speed limit on I-5 should be abolished. Everybody is going 85 anyway, and
it's just a way to raise revenue."

Asked how he could serve as governor if he is convicted or even jailed,
Peron answered, "I can pardon myself. And my first official act will be to
pardon myself, then pardon all the other marijuana cases."

Copyright ) 1998 The Sacramento Bee