MEDICAL MARIJUANA: LEGAL, BUT HOW LONG?

In 1996, California voters approved the drug for people who have a doctor's
recommendation, but the Justice Department has sued to keep it out of their
hands

SAN FRANCISCO -- More than a year after California became the first state
to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, its use by the terminally ill
is under assault from state and federal authorities.

As a result, medical marijuana advocates say many patients who need the
drug have a hard time getting it, and doctors are reluctant to recommend it
to patients for fear of losing their federal licenses to write
prescriptions.

Proposition 215, approved by California voters in 1996, permits doctors to
recommend marijuana for their patients. Technically, doctors don't
prescribe it because that would violate federal law.

But the U.S. Justice Department, maintaining that federal law prohibits any
use of marijuana, has sued to shut down the California cooperatives that
supply it to the sick. Marijuana advocates say this could have a chilling
effect on efforts in other states to legalize medical pot.

"The bottom line has been reinforced once more: Medical users can be sent
to prison." says Chuck Thomas, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project
in Washington.

California's attorney general, Dan Lungren, also has been battling in state
courts for months to close the marijuana cooperatives. The co-ops, called
cannabis clubs, grow or purchase large quantities of marijuana, test it and
then sell it, at low cost, to members. In the state Legislature, there's a
move to put another measure before the voters to repeal 215.

Meanwhile, activists in at least six states and the District of Columbia
are gathering signatures to try to put medical marijuana measures on
November ballots. The six are Maine, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and
Florida. In Washington, D.C., the issue is on the ballot for the second
time. Voters there turned down an initiative last November.

Arizona voters approved medical marijuana when California did in 1996, but
the state Legislature immediately nullified the vote. Bills to legalize
medical pot failed in a dozen legislatures last year.

Perhaps 40 marijuana co-ops operate openly around the country, many more
underground.

Nationally, the Washington based Marijuana Policy Project estimates that
tens of thousands of patients use pot to relieve the side effects of AIDS
and cancer drugs, chronic pain and glaucoma symptoms.

AIDS patients Jon Freeman has a written doctor's recom- mendation and buys
marijuana at the Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative in San Francisco. The co-op
and five others around the state are named in the federal civil lawsuit.

Freeman says he'd have few options if the government shuts off his supply
of the only drug that allows him to function.

"I'd have to buy it on the street, but it from some dope dealer," says
Freeman, 32. "That would be dangerous, and you never know about the
quality. You don't know what it's been sprayed with."

California's law leaves it up to doctors to judge which patients would
benefit from marijuana. But with a doctor's letter of recommendation, a
patient can legally grow for personal use.

Proposition 215 provides an automatic defense against a criminal charge of
possession.

After Proposition 215 passed, federal officials threatened to revoke the
prescription-writing authority of any doctor who recommended pot for
patients. But doctors filed a class-action suit and last April won a
preliminary injunction against federal sanctions. Marijuana clubs and
co-ops emerged in the 1980's to provide reliable, non-street sources of
marijuana to the sick.

They operated underground or with the tacit approval of local police before
215. But because the measure made no mention of co-ops, their legal status
is disputed.

Lungren, a Republican candidate for governor, has argued that 215 legalizes
patient use only, no co-ops. A state appeals court ruling in December
backed him up, but the San Francisco co-op is appealing to the state
Supreme Court.

Many local authorities oppose co-ops. Last month, the Orange County
district attorney brought felony charges against the operator of a Santa
Ana marijuana co-op.

Dennis Peron, the San Francisco co-op founder and co-author of 215, has
been a lightning rod in the state's ongoing pot wars. He calls the federal
suit "a slap in the face of California voters."

"We're selling pot to sick and dying people," he says. "If they close us,
what they'll get is 8,000 people trying to buy pot in the park." A March 24
hearing is scheduled in federal court in San Francisco.

"Dennis has refused to play by the rules and it's hurting the rest of us,"
says Scott Imler, director of the Los Angeles, Cannabis Resource Center in
West Hollywood. "It's unfortunate for the movement."

Imler, co-author with Peron of 215, thinks at least half of San Francisco
club members aren't legitimate patients.

But Peron has his defenders. "I support Dennis because none of us would be
here if he hadn't done what he did," says Jeff Jones, director of the
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. "He's doing very good community
service."

Federal court papers say undercover agents repeatedly bought marijuana at
the six clubs, but Peron claims entrapment. He says agents had doctors'
letters, but when the club called to verify them, "the narcs were on the
other end of line."

In fact, some California co-ops work hand in hand with the authorities.
"If the goal is to make sure medical marijuana doesn't get out of hand,
then co-ops are the way to regulate it," says Dan Abrahamson, a lawyer for
doctors in the class- action suit "Generally, police find it
counterproductive to crack down on good co-ops."

Gregory King, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington, says civil
instead of criminal charges were filed against co-ops in "a deliberate
attempt to take a measured approach."

Still, medical marijuana supporters think doctors now will be even more
reluctant to recommend pot, and more patients will be driven underground to
acquire it.

Freeman says the AIDS drug AZT makes his bones ache and leaves him
nauseated. It makes him feel agitated and takes away his appetite.

"The medicine makes me not want to get out of bed," he says.

"But I can come down here and smoke, and I want to eat and that helps me
maintain my weight. I buy pot here, and I know it's going to help my body."