STATE TOP COURT CLEARS WAY TO SHUT MEDICAL POT CLUBS

The California Supreme Court left intact a lower-court ruling yesterday
that could allow the state to close down all medical marijuana clubs.

The high court's action set the stage for Attorney General Dan Lungren to
follow through on his promise to shutter the clubs.

A spokesman for Lungren said the attorney general will ask San Francisco
Superior Court Judge David Garcia today to issue an injunction to close
down the more than 20 cannabis clubs across the state.

By declining to review a ruling by the First District Court of Appeal, the
high court let stand a decision that Proposition 215 allows only ``primary
caregivers'' to furnish pot.

``We're pleased with the court's decision not to hear this case,'' said
Matt Ross, a spokesman for the attorney general. ``This means the court has
agreed with our office.''

Lungren, a Republican who is running for governor, contends that the clubs
have been selling pot without doctors' prescriptions. The 1996 ballot
initiative allows for possession and cultivation of marijuana upon a
doctor's recommendation to ease the pain and nausea of AIDS, cancer,
glaucoma and other conditions.

In a brief order, the state Supreme Court declined to review the lower
court's ruling against the Cannabis Cultivators Club in San Francisco. The
club, founded by Dennis Peron, believed it was entitled under Proposition
215 to act as a ``primary caregiver'' and to furnish marijuana to
customers. The appeals court defined a primary caregiver as one who has
consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health or safety of a
patient and said it cannot be an enterprise like the Cannabis Cultivators
Club.

Peron, who authored the landmark initiative, said he will continue to press
his legal fight. The appellate court ruling, he said, allows cannabis clubs
to act as ``caregivers for cultivation purposes.'' ``We've stopped selling
marijuana,'' Peron said, noting that his club has changed its name from
Cannabis Buyers' Club to the Cannabis Cultivators Club. ``Now, were being
reimbursed for our costs. There's a semantical difference.''

The appeals court ruled that the only way a patient can obtain marijuana
legally is to grow it or obtain it from a primary caregiver who has grown
it. The court said primary caregivers may receive compensation for the cost
of growing marijuana for authorized patients.

``Voters did not intend to allow commercial enterprises to sell narcotics,
like Mr.

Peron's doing,'' said John Gordnier, an assistant attorney general.

Gordnier said Peron's club is ineligible under the law to be a primary
caregiver.

Peron, who is also seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination, said tampering
with Proposition 215 is ``like rescinding civil rights legislation.''
``People who are sick are not going to go back to sitting in the back of
the bus,'' he said. ``They're not going to go out into the street to get
their medicine just because the state wants to use technicalities.''